Inferno
by dayarani2014
Summary: Niyati and Daya met after almost nine long years...Would they rejoice their mystical friendship that they had met in Daya's apartment? Would Niyati perceive her own feelings? Would she express herself this time? It's a sequel of 'Is This Love'..
1. Chapter 1

Part1

Daya removed his shoes before striding ahead on the soggy sand of the beach...His apathetic eyes kept a glance over the waving roaring sea while his tangled hair was rippling in cool onshore breeze making him to look like a stoical person sunk in deep cogitation...He sat finally on the sand placing his chin upon his knees still gazing out at the whining waves...A stifling loneliness nowadays badly arrested him...It was not the fact that he was gradually getting oblivious about his duty but sometimes whenever he had to spend time with himself he noticed that from somewhere an unidentified melancholy endeavoured to seize him...It seemed as if his breath would be throttled slowly and there would be no one around him to save him from his drowning self...

Coming before the prodigious sea,feeling its enormous vastness...every time he felt revivified...The gigantic sea everytime as if admonished him saying,:'don't you know that a lovelorn heart can only get peace,by loving everyone around him...Spread love, give love to everyone irrespective of the fact whether you would return it back or not... He flashed a dolorous smile to himself and then kept absorbing cool humid breeze of the sea till someone touched his shoulder very lightly,perhaps with much hesitation...

He turned his face quickly only to discover someone whom he hadn't ever expected to see in such a situation...

:'Dayaa...right?' She pressed her lips as usually a little scornfully and sat beside him without caring about the waves which were making them drenched...

:'aap?' Daya was grossly stupefied and a little embarrassed as someone intruded into his privacy with such a directness...

:'jee...' she answered back promptly as if getting revived by his embarrassment,:'mmain...aap ki purana dost... Pradhan...'

A squirm smile crossed Daya's face as he returned back with candour,:'dost kabhi...purana hota hai kya Doctor?'

he paused and thought a little before resurrecting his smile back,:'of course...agar...dosti...' he made his eyes narrower making his face witty,:'sachcha ho to...'

Niyati now flashed a defenseless grin at him and raising a hand towards him for handshake she remarked,jestfully,:'baato me aap se jeetna...' she pressed her lips and closed her eyes to finish,:'mushkil hai...'

Daya too shook hands with her with a big grin and then sighed looking further at the roaring sea, trying his level best to conceal the deep loneliness with which he had come here...

:'to...' niyati sounded mellifluous,:'Inspector Dayaa...' her voice seemed sardonical as usual...:'apna sara kaam chhor keeee...yaha? is sunsan beach me?'

Daya wished to reply back straight but just when he was about to reveal, a mischief infusing into him suggested that he should make her a little riled before anything else and he answered back a little quizzically,:'sunsan beach meee...aya hun to...is ka matlab yehi hai naa...'

Niyati with a hardened face chimmed in before Daya could finish,:'looog pasand nahi...'

A skittish chuckle spread over Daya's face as he remained silent for some seconds before answering back, with an unfeigned grin,:'aaj mera off duty hai...is liye agaya tha doctor...'

Niyati sighed with flared nose before keeping her eyes further over his seeming to be serene face and gazed with smoky eyes until a small wave dashed upon them making her unstable and she grunted with reflex,:'ohh...my ...' Daya grasped her quick to stop her falling from sitting position... Niyati felt embarrassed though she stem her emotion with a flippant smile,:' ttha...thanks...Daya...' Daya too with a titter handled the stiflng embarrassment of the situation and then suggested with prudence,:'chaliye...hum paidal chale...us taraf...?' he waited for Niyati's approval and niyati agreed wiping out the drenched sands from her face...

Daya and Niyati leapt to their feet and kept ambling along the shore in slow pace,feeling a little queer, though the fresh air of the sea perhaps revived their energy and Niyati came back with humour again,:' hmmmm...soch rahi hun ki...inspector Dayaaa...off duty ke din...koi orphanage ya oldage home me naa rehke...yaa...koi...charitable trust ke sath...din na guzar ke...achanak...beach me kyu agaye?' there was a mixture of curiosity and humour in her dark adorned eyes and she added a little scornfully,:'kyaa yeee...ajeeb nahi hai?'

Daya chuckled darting his face here and there before answering back with equal humour,:' ajeeb to ye bhi hai doctor...ki... Pradhan Inspector Daya ko jhagra karte huye na soch ke...kuchh aur soch rahi hai uske bare me...'

Niyati's lips curled and she smirked faintly to say,:'abhi bhi aap bilkul waise hi hain...ziddi aur...'

:'aur...?' Daya asked looking at her straight and the comical smile slowly ebbed away from his face as he experienced something unusual within her eyes...something which was inexplicable and even unimaginable to him...He averted his glance prudently and then in an effort to dispel the embarrassment he countered,:'waise...aaj aap ka bhi...chhutti hai...' there was a slight hesitation in asking her anything and thus Daya tried to conclude it from her appearance in the beach in an hour in which she should have been in her lab...

Niyati gazed at him a little cryptically before evading her glance sharply from him with a half sneer and half smile and replied like an obedient girl making nothing unobtrusive,:'mera abhi...roz hi...chhutti hai ...' she then heaved a long sigh unknowingly giving hints to Daya that she was going through even not severe but a faint mental depression...

His brows drew together as he looked at her reflective face but he chose to maintain decent silence...For about a minute there was deadly silence between the two except the roar of the sea...Niyati divulged finally,:' pichhle saal...nanajee ka...dehant ho gaya...' she kept adding drily,:' nani ko mere pas le ayi thi...unka bhi waqt beet jayega aur...' she paused and then added with a sigh,:'mera bhi...' Both kept plodding slowly...Daya had a concerned anticipation to listen to more from her while Niyati took it a little long to continue,:' magar nanajee ko khone ka gham...woh bhul nahi pa rahi hai...aur ...depression itna hi bar gaya...ki...mujhe laga...agar main ...abhi har waqt...un ke pas na reh pau...to...' she managed a lump down her throat and said,:'to...main un ko bhi...kho dungi...' She now became conscious and said in almost business like voice,:'is liye...professional kaam se...sabbatical liyaa...'

Daya kept looking at her astoundingly, before revealing his thought,:'aapne...bohut achcha kiya hai...kyuki...' saying that much he fended off with an embarrassed glance feeling that his opinion hadn't been called for and he was quick to apologise,:' maaf kijiye...agar maine koi galat baat keh diya to...'

Niyati with narrow eyes and quizzical glance, stopped walking and turning towards him, she commented ,:'mazak kar rahe hain aap?'

Daya feeling more repentant answered back promptly,:'jee nahi...main mazak to nahi kiya tha...bas...mmujhe jo laga tha woh hi kaha...'

Niyati with a curt glance now asked him, as if to test him more intensely,:'kyu aisa laga tha aap ko ki maine achcha kam kiya?'

Daya braced himself to counter the sharp glances of Niyati,:'kyuki...jeevan ...ek hisab ka khata nahi hai...Nanijee ke sath bitaya huya palo ka keemat...shayaad...bohut zada hai...chahe...is duniya ki hisabi logo ke liye nahi...magar aap ke liye...' he stopped finding Niyati staring at him with a smile reflecting a mixture of stupefaction and a little conceited smirk simultaneously...Crimson hue spread over his face as he found the situation grossly uncomfortable and lowering his eyes down he breathed with discomfort,:'chale?'

They resumed plodding ahead and unexpectedly Niyati broke the silence this time,:' aap pehla insan hai...' she drawled in her effort to show her carelessness about everything,:' jo ye kaha ki...mera faisla...sahi tha...'

Daya found himself flashing a dolorous smile at her feeling that perhaps she had to go through a difficult ordeal for her wish to spend her time with her grandmother...

Niyati remarked being sunk in cogitation,:' hala ki...mujhe...logo ki baato ki...fikr karne ki...zada adaat nahi hai...magar phir bhi...' she stopped with a sigh and tried to finish it with a forced smile...Daya too flashed her a courteous smile as they kept wading slowly being almost silent and carrying an inexplicable bashfulness until Niyati's phone blinked ...

:'nani ka phone...' she informed Daya and then received it,:'haa naani...sorry...tumhe neend se jagaana achcha nahi laga...isliye na batake hi chali aayi aaj...' she cooed like a little girl which made Daya nonplused as he had never imagined such an unknown personality hidden beneath her rough & tough exterior...He too stopped walking and waited for her to finish her phone looking around...

:'kkya? aap kaun bol rahe hain?' Niyati's voice changed radically and anxiety seeped through her face,:' My Gwwwd...please aap log rukiyee...main abhi arahi hun...' she started running towards the road forgetting the fact that Daya was her companion and she should inform him something...Daya sensed that something had been wrong, yelled from the back,:'dr. niyatiii...kya ho gaya?'

Niyati with a panic stricken face now informed him,:'woh...nani gir gaye hain...mujhe abhi jana parega...' Daya too stepped ahead hurriedly along with her...As they reached on the road, Niyati now spluttered while panting,:'aap kyu arahe hain...'

Daya stated with a grim face,:'chaliye...ho sakta hai...hospital me le jana pare...aur...' he was interrupted as niyati shrieked out,:'nahi...' at the very next moment she tried to mitigate herself and Daya noticed that tears were rippling in her eyes...

He looked at her sympathetically before jabbering out,:'chaliye...jaldi...'

It took five minutes to reach at Niyati's ground floor bunglow...There was a knot of people in the sitting room and Niyati rushed there frantically before locating her grandmother lying on the sofa...Blood was still oozing out from the back of her head and someone was rubbing ice on the wound...

:'my gawwd...stiches karna parega...' she inferred looking at the wound at a glance...She hastened to snatch a writing pad,muttering out,:'mujhe ye sab ka jaroorat hai...please koi mujhe la ke de sakte hain?'

Daya thrust himself ahead and stated with genuine concern,:'mujhe dijiye...'

Niyati scribbled something on a paper and then handed it to Daya...Daya rushed out without wasting any time...


	2. Chapter 2

Niyati had done three stiches successfully maintaining poise while Daya waited to assist her though the crowd had been dispersed long ago...The old lady was feeling weak and thus resting in couch...Daya was hovering between his two self being flummoxed enough that whether he should stay there further or leave...but before that the conclusion came as Niyati's phone rang loud...

After a minute she came back to sitting room with an annoyed face flinging her hands,:'goshhh...aab is me rasoi bhi nahi ayegi...' she moved here and there with confusion and grasping her long tress she expressed her anxiety,:'ab tumhara dekhbhal karuuu ya khana banau?'

Daya,with much hesitation,suggested,:'aap ek kaam kar sakti hai...mmain...nanijee ke pas baith jata hun...aap...' apprehension seeped through his face as he was expected a sharp rejection from Niyati,:'aap...khana bana lijiyee...' Niyati though denied to accept his suggestion but with unexpected modesty,:'ye kaise ho sakta hai Daya? subah se...aap idhar hi baithe hain...aap ko bhi to...ghar jana hai...khana khana hai...'

Daya with a benevolent smile answered back,:'mera koi taqleef nahi hogaa...'

Niyati stared at him cryptically and as Daya looked at her he almost startled to see a little queer luminous parlance of her eyes...He cringed down with a slight inconvenience and almost within a second he heard her voice,though it was business-like,:'thik hai...magar aap ko phir ek shart maan na parega mera...'

Daya raised his eyes with a staggered expression and asked,with puckered eyes,:'kaisa shart?'

Niyati with a conceited smile replied back,masterfully,:'aap ko...yaha lunch karna parega...'

Daya's astonished face transfigured into smiling one though he was staggering between accepting or rejecting her proposal...

:'mmagar...' he jabbered out,:'iss ka...koi...jaroorat nahi hai...doctor...' he felt faltering as Niyati countered back stoutly,:'guest ka khatirdari karne ka class aap hi to liya tha...yaad hai?'her lips curled comically to form a half smirk while an unknown bashfulness pervaded Daya's face as he temporized to reply back with lowered eyes,:'bohut purani baat hai ye ...aur phir...' he somehow mustered courage to be bantering,:'ajeeb baat to ye hai...ke aap...woh sab...abhi bhi...yaad karke rakha...'a pure innocense rippling as his faint smile spread over his gentle face...

:'to maan rahe hain aap...' said Niyati with an indulgent smile,:'ki meri yaaddash achchi hai...'

Daya with a demure smile reminded her,:'aap khana bana lijiye...main nanijee ke pas baith ta hun...'

:'oh yesss...' niyati exclaimed and whooshed towards the kitchen...

Daya kept sitting on the couch just in front of the other couch where the old lady had been lying weakly..He kept gazing at the frail and sallow face of the lady which seemed at the same time very dejected and anxious...It seemed as if in sleep too the lady was getting worried for someone...A note of deep sympathy wreathed with sorrow aroused within him as he became thoughtful about how decrepitude came creeping to seize everyone...

Almost half an hour elapsed when Niyati appeared further with a bowl of soup and a plate of pea rice with vegetables..

Niyati raised those plates towards Daya saying,:'please thora pakriye naa...' and then she kneeled on the floor and with some gentle pat tried to wake up her granny,:'nnaniii...thora kha lo...'

The lady denied with a contorted face while Niyati continued persuading her in a soothing voice,unlike her nature,:'pleeaaase...dekho...aaj main khana banake layi hun...'

The lady continued denying food and niyati continued persuading,:'aise kaise chalega haa? tumhe pata bhi hai kitna khoon beh gaya hai tumhara? haa? kitna weak ho gaye ho tum?'

Daya gazed at Niyati with an astounding glance as he hadn't ever have the opportunity to experience such an emotional self of her...Now getting a little aware about the situation he felt it his duty to help her in convincing her nani about having some food...He chimmed in though in hesitation,:'Niyati...' he felt it odd to pronounce her name without addressing 'doctor',:'thik keh rahi hai nani...aap ko...' he paused with a disconcerted face as the lady now being aware of the presence of an unknown man stared at him with astonishment...

Daya added,trying to be poised and gentle,:'aap ko kuchh to khana parega...'

A grateful smile spread over Niyati's face as she once looked at Daya and asserted,:'dekhaa...Daya bhi yehi keh raha hai..Kuchh to khana parega tumhe...'

The aged lady now endeavoured to pop herself up asking feebly,:'ttum...kaun ho beta?'

An awkward embarrassment seeped through his face as he looked at Niyati at a glance and her silence befuddled him more as he discerned the fact that Niyati too was feeling discomfort in answering such a simple yet delicate question...

:' tum ko to...is se pehle...nahi dekha tha beta...' stated the lady falteringly...

While Niyati was scrabbling for a plausible reply,Daya came to rescue her,:'wwoh...nani...mmain...aur niyati...sath me...kaam karte the...' he paused trying to perceive whether the lady was satisfied or not and his tongue slipped,:'hum...dost hain nani...'

Niyati promptly turned her face towards Daya with a staggering expression while a very unexpected grin rippled over the face of the lady as she uttered in a relieved tone,:'woooooh...to tu meri Niyati ka dost hai...'

:'naniii!' exclaimed Niyati with a mixture of embarrassment and bafflement...

The weak lady suddenly turned jocose though still the sign of stress imprinted over her face,:'mujhe kyu...aakhein dikha rahi hai? itne dino se poochhti rahi...magar...mujhe kuchh nahi kaha...sab chhupati rahi...aur...'Niyati now intruded a little brashly,:'aisa kuchh bhi nahi hai nani...' her voice seemed thick and hard,though the lady hadn't been disappointed even a little and added,patting over Niyati's cheeks,:'mujh se chhupane ka kya jaroorat hi hai tujhe? agar teri ma zinda hoti to...' Niyati again chimmed in and this time a little forcefully like a woman who could fight back getting hurt,:'nnani...maine kaha naa...dikhane aur chhupane ka kuchh bhi nahii...'

The glow that had been visible in the face of the lady now extinguished abruptly as she stated now in a lower tone,:'thik hai...kar zid...jo marzi woh kar...mujhe kya...kal ko dekhne nahi aaungi main kuchh bhi...' her face seemed puffy like a child and Niyati heaved a long sigh of dejection and tiredness as she slung herself down beside her granny,leaning against the couch,staring vacantly at the ceiling...

Daya was perplexed enough not to thrust himself into their private conversation until he realised that these ladies were stubborn enough to stick to their own points and in this way no one would gain anything except the old lady would have to be hungry...IT was embarrassing to perceive that he would be the cause of their dissension and to get rid off that unwanted situation he spluttered irresolutely trying to flash a natural smile though it converted into a titter unknowningly,:'nnani jee...woh...Niyati ke sath...jhagra baad me hoga...Abhi to aap...kha lijiye...aaiye...' unlike his nature of being an introvert man,he leapt to his feet and kneeled before the old lady with soup bowl and a spoon in his hand...The lady too couldn't argue anymore and like an obedient child she kept sipping soup from the spoon Daya held...

Niyati couldn't notice anything as an unknown annoyance churned inside her and when accidentally her eyes stuck on Daya,she sat straight getting nonplussed...

The old lady asked in between sipping,:'Tera naam kya hai?'

Niyati snorted with irritation while Daya replied gently,:'Daya...'

:'achcha naam hai...jaise tera pyara surat...waisa hi naam hai...'she remarked unknowingly making both of her companion flummoxed and inconvenient...Colour dyed on Daya's cheeks while Niyati turned her face away from them and sat still grizzling with anger inside her...

As she finished slurping the soup,Daya now busied himself in feeding her some solid food and she too without protest eating eagerly,shooting some questions in every possible moment...It was as if an interview Daya was facing from somewhat stringent and somewhat kind old lady and though he felt that wave of something akin to bashfulness passing through him sitting infront of the prying eyes of the lady,he never felt affronted..

Niyati was silent as her mission was getting fulfilled at least for the time being; because she had thought it almost impossible to feed her inflexible granny,and somehow she felt a huge flame of anger was disturbing her seeing that her granny was behaving so obediently interacting with a complete stranger..It was like her defeat and as she continued pondering over it again & again,she felt insulted...Hard lines appeared on her forehead and her jaws bobbed up & down...She turned her face sharply towards Daya and looking at his gentle abashed smile as he flashed for granny,something started melting inside her and she quickly perceived that the anger was dispelling fast spreading a tenderness in the centre of her heart...She tried to whipped up her emotion and maintained a hardened face until her granny finished devouring the food very unexpectedly...It seemed that she was spurred abruptly to see just a man in her house...A man? Just a stranger unknown man! How deplorable the fact was! Niyati perceived that further an aching anoyance was peeping inside her heart...She squinted her eyes at her granny to watch how delightfully she was talking to Daya, forgetting the fact wholly that even two days back she had been lying on the couch with an apathetic face and denying to utter anything that her grand-daughter was asking her...

:'tere ghar me kaun kaun hain beta?' asked the lady with a note of affection...

Daya took no umbrage and with an uneasy titter, he replied like an obedient child,:'koi...nahi hai...nanijee...'

:'hey bhagwan!' she exclaimed with a shocking gesture and added with sympathy,:'itna pyara ladka ka...dekhbhal karne ke liye...ghar pe koi nahi hai?'

:'nanii..' Niyati ventured to stop her though in vain attempt and she leapt to her feet to go away like storm from there...

Daya felt the scorching heat of Niyati's anger which made him more flummoxed and left him bereft of speech...He also discerned the fact that he would have to depart soon if he desired to maintain peace in this household...

AS the old lady lied again on the couch for resting,Daya hesitantly called,:' ...'

No one answered for a minute impelling him to call once more,:'nniyati jee..' Daya was looking haggard and quite helpless though this time his luck wasn't that bad as Niyati appeared with an emotionless look and invited him with a dry voice,:'aaiye Daya...khana ready hai...'

Daya with sluggish steps and irresolute gestures advanced towards the table...

:'dekhiye...' Niyati sounded sardonical as usual,:'meri banaya huya khana...kitna kha sakte hain aap?' her lips pressed to form a smile though Daya perceived that beneath that something unknown was smouldering inside her-something which couldn't be conjectured easily...

Daya maintained silence, flapped his plate and as he raised his glance,Niyati's half smile was visible to him...He tittered as Niyati averted her narrower eyes filled with a mixture of derision and curiosity and then went on to serve him peas rice and spicy cauliflower..

Daya again flashed a demure smile and waited for her...but she on the other hand kept waiting for Daya to start...

Daya with puckered eyes,asked her,:'aap nahi khayenge?'

Niyati looking at him with a quizzical glance smirked finally to deliver,:'Atithi ko bhukha chhor ke...khana khane ka shiksha...' she pressed her lips further to finish,:' mujhe nahi mila hai Daya jee...'

Some random crimson colour stole into his cheeks as his face couldn't stem to show how staggered he had been and Niyati continued to relish much waited perplexity over his face...His lips curled into an amusing smile as he shrugged at last, saying,:'wake hi...aap ka ...memory cells...' he hunched a little and whispered the rest comically,:'kuchh zada hi active hain...'

Niyati disarmingly flashed a grin,stating,:' to maan rahe hain aap...'

Daya with a throaty luagh this time remarked,:'chaliye maan liya ke aap mujh se kayi guna zada achcha host hain...abhi aap bhi khana khaiye...'

Niyati with a bantering smile flapped her own plate and kept serving herself saying,:'kyu? main nahi khaungi to aap ka khane me koi taqleef hoga kya?'

:'of course hoga,' Daya was prompt this time with a twitting smile...

:'woh kaise?' Niyati asked with a coquettish smile...

:' kyuki main akela khata rahunga...aur aap mann hi mann mujhe gali dete rahenge ki...sach me...is kharoos aadmi to bada ill mannered hain...' his ingenuous grin slowly faded the smile away from Niyati's face as she felt herself in trance beholding at him bewilderingly as he started chewing the food...

Daya was eating peacefully until he felt that a pair of gleaming eyes was fixed upon him...and as he mustering his courage raised his glance at Niyati, she averted her glance and started eating very slowly...Daya, flashing a coy smile remarked,:' aap...itna achcha khana bana leti hain...mujhe to abhi...sharm araha hai...ke...kaise...aap mera khana...kha payi thi...' A queer gentle wave passing through his face made Niyati irrecoverably weak...She though became conscious and put her best effort to stem her emotion,:' aap me...jitna bhi khamiya hain...' she tried to sound analytical and prudent,:'ye us me se ek hai...pata hai aap ko?' she glanced at him sharply making Daya a little flummoxed...

:'kaun sa?' asked Daya,inquiringly...

Niyati flashed a complacent smile before replying back,:' Aap ka ye modesty aap ko pichhe leke ja sakta hai...' she muttered it like a suggestion while Daya protested again with a diffident smile,:'modesty nahi hai doctor...jo mujhe sach laga wohi kaha tha bas...' a loose smile pasted over his face as he looked at her and then seeing her silent he resorted to the food again...

Niyati came back after a perceivable long pause,:'mere jaise kisi ke pas kam se kam aise na kehna...ki aap kya nahi kar sakte hain...' a mischief glinted within her eyes and as Daya glanced at her a little puckishly,she resurrected back again,:'kyuki mere jaise llog yehi yaad karke rakhenge...ki aap ko kya nahi ata hai...aur baad me...' she closed and opened her eyes quickly to utter the rest,:' aap ko tana bhi denge...'

Daya chuckled meaninfully; his brows raised amusingly and he chewed the food carefully before divulging his thought,:' jin ka mann me...kisi ko tana dene ka itna ichchha hain...woh kisi ko...sabdhan nahi karte hain doctor...' his face adorned with a grin that wasn't carrying any superciliousness or any kind of smug satisfaction but only an air of pure gaiety...

A frisson of scare passed through her heart as an apprehension suddenly sprang up within her that might everything be apparent before his sage eyes...She hurried back into having food in an abrupt manner that he noticed...

Uncomfortable silence was throbbing awkwardly between them,making them felt immensely inconvenient...

Niyati felt the irratic beats of her heart against her ribs as Daya's gentle face was gleaming with the refracted sunbeams coming through the windows...His lowered face, the precision of his lips in musticating the food, the quiff of his hair that was swaying lightly, his carefully chosen intervals of batting confused and shy eyelids, his moving adam's apple...everything contributed in racing her pulse...

With almost a stifling breathlessness, she broke the silence in a bustle, pretending to be oblivious,:'arey...main...main bhul hi gayi...aap thora aur rice lijiye...aur...ye veg ball dena to...mmain...bhul hi gayi thi...'

Daya felt relieved as the silence ceased and with a surprising glance and faint chuckle he now asked politely,:'ek baat kahu?'

Niyati permitted him with a nod and smirk,:'jee haa kahiye...'

Daya's smile broadened as he revealed,defencelessly,:'aap...bohut badal gayi hain...'

A cryptic smile hovered at the corner of her lips as she gazed at him meaningfully for five seconds before evaded her glance sharply with a seeming to be sneer...Daya chuckled again and returned to the food while Niyati closing her eyes prayed hard for emboldened herself so that the causes wouldn't be so evident to him...She buried scare in her fists and tried to be strong enough to analyse anything & everything,:'exactly...kya badlav nazar me aya aap ko?' she further casted an imperious look at him...

Daya chewed the food and with a long sigh resurrected back with a confident smile,:'changes...in every aspect...'

:'for worse or for better?' Niyati shot the question like an interviewer giving him a deprecating look...

Daya's lips pressed to form a skittish chuckle as he shrugged answering,:'for better I hope...' mischief was glinting in his eyes...

Niyati nodded like a judicious one and then remarked,like a proud analyst:"aap me bhi thora sa badlav aya hai...'

Daya raised his inquiring eyes and kept eating while Niyati with a smile revealed,:'at least Pradhan ko handle karne me...thori si maturity aya hai aap ko...' her candid grin was surprising for Daya as she added more with a little throaty laugh,:'at least jhagra karna band kiya hai aap ne...'

Daya's face gleamed with inviolate innocense as he grinned...Niyati gazed for a few seconds at his face enchantingly,covetously and then with a long sigh she hastened back to have food with a seemingly grim face...

After the lunch Daya visited the old lady who was seeming to be in sound sleep...He kneeled before her couch patting her tangled white hair for a little without having knowledge that Niyati was scrutinizing his affectionate face standing riveted at the door...

Niyati's glance deepened watching Daya's gentle face which was radiating pure affection for an octogenarian.

Daya slowly leapt to his feet unknowingly giving Niyati the much opportunity to compose herself...Turning towards the door he was a little staggered to see Niyati there and then with a candid smile he said,:'ab main chalu doctor Pradhan...'

Niyati forcing a courteous smile,thanked him,generously,:'kaise aap ko shukriya bolu...woh pata nahi Dayaa...'

Daya intruded with a humorous tone,:'woh to mujhe aap ko kehna chaiye doctor...Itni achchi nani se milaya mujhee...itna achcha khana khilaya...'

Niyati's eyes turned a little tempting as she murmured,:'aisa lagta hai ki...mazak karna...aap ka nasha hai..'

Daya's face ablazed further with a priceless grin as he countered,carefully,:'nahi doctor...jo kaha ...woh mazak nahi...balki sach hai...'

Niyati with an air of nonchalance,started flicking her long sleeky tress and then remarked scornfully,:'chahe jhutha hi sahi...magar nani ke pas aap mera dost hain...kyu? aur...dost ko...kabhi jhut nahi kehna chaiye...right ?'She was quite unaware that her squinted eyes fell upon him tantalizingly which Daya faced quite unflinchingly with an alluring smile,:'jhut kahu...aise soch ke to kuchh kaha nahi tha doctor...' a teasing smile waited at his lips,:'lekin is me...agar aap na khush hai...to meri kaha huya baat main wapas le leta hun...'

Niyati,puckering her brows together,added, comically,:'achcha? aise baat bhi wapas le sakte hain aap?jaise ki...'her eyes flamed with derision,:'bazar se kuchh cheeze kharid ke le gaye the...pasand nahi aya to...wapas karne aye hain...' Daya noticed the mocking parlance of her eyes and with an abashed smile he replied,:'mera pasand...na pasand to...bematlab hai doctor Pradhan...'he paused gazing at the floor vacantly for some second before resuming,a little dolefully,:' chahe jhut ho...ya sach...magar ek dukhi mann ko...jab mere baato se...thori si tasalli mila...tab...mujhe achcha laga tha...'his face slowly became lugubrious and repentant as he added with a murmur,:'aap ko...us baat se...bura laga hai...to...maafi chahta hun doctor...' An uneasy silence reigned between them-a silence that was stifling and difficult to bear...

Niyati's glance fixed at Daya-with a mixture of emotion...She was burning with a searing guilt but her lips denying to utter anything that could wipe out his discomfort...

Daya,with an awful smile,murmured,:'goodbye doctor Pradhan...'

Niyati remained bereft of speech,pathetically,frenziedly...


	3. Chapter 3

The sound of the insects filled the valley...The sough of the sea too was getting audible...Niyati popped herself up and checked her grandmother...She was in deep sleep now after having a long session of reprimand why Niyati hadn't woke her up at the time of Daya's departure...A faint smile curled at Niyati's lips as she patted the hair of the old lady with affection...After about five minutes she almost tugged the clock from the side table and it indicated exactly 2.30 A.M...She heaved a long sigh and then pillowed her head over the fluffy pillow...She closed her eyes forcefully but sleep denied to descend upon her...A cool gale dashed upon her impelling her to fling her eyes opened...She sprang up and left her warm bed slowly coming towards the opened window...

fleecing cloud was floating in the aquamarine sky illuminating the earth in its beauty...She stared at the sky with a reflective face that was slowly turning hardened...A sense of loneliness that had been haunting her since the last ten years started seizing her further...The dangerous hollowness inside her,with which she had been fighting relentlessly,was gnawing at her further...But why? Why did it come back again? She had been able to make herself believed that that hollowness was nothing but the stress of working hard since a long...but now...it seemed that she spelled everything wrong and...a scare slowly instilling into her that she wouldn't afford to analyse the reasons once more...Her eyes turned blurry and misty as crowd of question gathered in her mind...Would she muster courage to ruminate about all those had been piercing her heart since the last long ten years?

A rueful smirk came into her face as she thought how she had condescended to even think about the feeling that was welling up inside her like surging waves of tsunami...

She hurried back into her bed in order to be oblivious about everything around her that was making the incessant wave of emotion intensified inside her... Without much thinking she drank a full glass of water and then slung herself onto the soft bed..

For about ten minutes she kept listening to the tick tock sound of the clock failing to sink into sleep...She wished to whip her emotion being stringent as anger was seeping slowly inside her,making her irresistibly restive...To her consternation she had to leave the bed and going to the washroom she splashed her face with cold water...An unbearable clod of agony as if slipping down slowly from her throat,pressurising the centre of her chest...She gazed at her flummoxed reflection for about a minute before coming to her study room with sluggish steps...

Switching on the table lamp she tugged the writing pad roughly,desperately and started scribbling fast..." I didn't meant that. Perhaps it's always my fault...perhaps I always sound like an aggressive cynical odd creature...perhaps I always do something so stupid giving everyone the opportunity to misunderstand me...Perhaps when I want to express humbleness,my face pathetically turns priggish...but what can I do? I am like that...and...'her fingers trembled writing anymore and she darted her face here and there unable to settle her glance over the page...

After a long pause,she came back,with a hesitation as her pen wrote,"you...can treat ...' she stopped further and now she replaced 'you' with 'world' and then carried on,"world can treat me as a supercilious vainglorious pampered woman...but...believe me...I find myself in guilt whenever I boast for something...Whenever I flash a sneer of disdain, whenever I look at someone with cold snub,my heart seems to get contracted as someone's picture conjured up before my eyes...Someone...who with just a grin had been able to efface all these undesirable qualities I had...and...' her hand trembled once more listening to the voice of the old lady..

:'Niniiiiii' she called her loud,affectionately...

Niyati,closing the pad in haste,rushed into the bedroom,:'kya huya nani?' she looked worried and vexed..

The old lady grizzled quite childishly,:'neend khul gaya...'

Niyati sighed and slowly a tender smile crossed her face but she almost startled to get more,:'mujhe thori verandah me le jayegi?'

She was astounded and it reflected through her face as she exclaimed,:'abhi?'she shook her head with disbelief and then added in an air of reprimand,:'nani tumhe pata hai ke abhi adhi raat hai?'she smirked while the lady persisted with a huffy face,:'tujhe le jana nahi parega...' she paused and then to niyati's consternation added,:'Daya ayega to main use kahungi mujhe le jane ke liye...' Niyati felt her heart lurching in a scare...Was it a scare? she wasn't sure and neither she had the time to analyse as she promptly countered,a little brusquely,:'kyu? main tumhe le nahi jaati hun verandah me?'

The lady remained silent and for couple of minute,it couldn't be understood what was hidden in her mind, until she revealed at last,:'neend nahi anewala hai abhi...kya karu...'

Niyati within as if in a trance,accidentally divulged,:'is adhi raat me...us kharoos ko yaad karoge...to neend kaise ayega?'her eyes deepened and fixed at some unknown object...It appeared as if she was ruminating about something very deeply...The old lady now replied in a teasing tone of voice,:'achcha? tu kis kharoos ko yaad kar rahi thi phir? tu kyu jag rahi hai?'

colour sprinkled over Niyati's dusky face and she as usual covered the embarrassment with a smirk with feigned nonchalance,:'mazak achcha kar leti ho ttum...chalo...ab let jaao...' she advanced to make her grandmother lied but she still insisted,:'let sakti hun...magar ek shart pe...'

Niyati's brows drew together as she muttered looking at her dubiously,:'kaisa shart?' she was scared and apprehensive about something which she even afraid of thinking at that moment...

:'Kal Daya ko ekbar ane ke liye kehna...' the old lady was quick to reveal her wish and Niyati was even quicker to avert her glance...

:'bata...Daya ko ane ke liye bolegi na?'The lady kept repeating making Niyati standstill in something akin to mixture of fear thrill and anger...She was gobsmacked noticing her own patience as she hadn't screamed so far and swallowing a lump she jabbered,:'mmujhe..uska...number pata nahi...'

The old lady started grumbling with displeasure as it was unbelievable to her,:'tera dost hai...aur tujhe uska number kaise pata nahi? kal kaise leke ayi thi tu use? are...is se to achcha hai ke bol na...ki tu is burhi aurat pe meherbaani karna nahi chahti hai...haa...?' She was talking quite garrulously which Niyati noticed with a staggered expression...It was incredibly difficult task to persuade her to say something,because at one point of time, the lady used to sink in a sullen state, neither reacting in anything, nor talking on anything and she was habituated with the morbid silence that prevailed in her residence...

She kept cogitating deeply until the grumble of the lady increased and she had no other option but to lull her with a momentary lie,:'achcha thik hai...mmain...un ko...' she hesitated as an uprush of shyness seized her irritably,:'un ko ane ke liye...kahungi...'

It took almost half an hour to send the lady into the sleep and when she found herself further with the throbbing silence of the night, her eyes gleamed unkowingly, abnormally to think how she would approach the man to come there further to entertain her octogenarian grandmother...Would it be right to request him after such an indecent manner in which she bade him goodbye? She kept twiddling with her fingers sinking deep into the thought...A frisson of fear passed through her spine as she picked her cell phone and checked the number of the man which she had saved almost nine years back when she used to work in forensic department of CID Mumbai...But would he be using the same number after so many years! It was highly possible that he changed his number and in that case it would be a void number...but...' she felt that if she stressed her brain a little a thudding sound she heard in the back of her mind,indicating her that she was damn tired and she needed a sleep but she ventured to open her eyes to decide about the matter that what she would have to do in the morning to fulfill her granny's wish...but...her eyes got closed when the lark of the birds was audible...


	4. Chapter 4

A violent jerk woke Niyati up and she realised that the doorbell was ringing loud...Her granny was venturing to swing her legs from the bed dangerously...She stopped her in haste scolding in husky voice and then donning her overgown she headed towards the main door in hurry...As the door clanged open her eyes protruded in stark stupefaction...It seemed as if a gush of gale dashed upon her face making her fazed...It seemed as if a shaft of sunlight poured upon her lazy eyes making her animated...

The man was standing with a demure smile over his delicately curved lips...

:'aaap?' she couldn't stem the perplexity to seep through her face

:'office ja raha tha...' replied Daya a little late,:'socha ke...nani ka tabiyat kaisa hai...woh poochh lun...' There was a note of natural generosity that imparted the situation much gaiety...

Niyati squinted her beady eyes making him more flummoxed and just when Daya felt that perhaps Niyati was displeased by his visit and he should turn back,Niyati recalled how she kept burning last night to think about how she would contact him...She was quick to convert exasperated gesture to a pleasant smile and asked him inside,:'andar aaiye naa...'

Daya entered inside with a humble smile while Niyati now with a complacent smile, informed him,:'achcha huya aap khud hi agaye...nahi to...mujhe hi...' she grinned like a child and added,:'disguise me jana parta aap ke bureau me...aap ko lene...'

Astonishment crossed Daya's face and he brows puckered together as he asked,:'aisa kyu?'

Niyati answered with a haughty sigh,:'kyuki kal raat se nani ko...' a wave suddenly welled up inside her with a trembling effect though she continuted maintaining an unruffled gesture,:'bas...aap hi ka...yaad araha tha...' her face became a little reflective; eyes turned a little deepened...

A coy smile spread in his face as he spluttered in hesitation,:'sach kahu to...mujhe bhi...kal se...bohut bar nani jee ka yaad aya...is liye hi...' he stopped flickering an uneasy smile...

Niyai felt a strong urge to taunt the man sitting in front of her and without much thinking she threw it with a sardonical smile,:'aap ko kyu yaad aya?'

She kept relishing to watch Daya's baffled face with a cocky smile until he could mumble a reply,:'pata nahi...kyu aya...' he paused and resumed within some seconds,:'shayaad is liye...ki...woh bhi mujhe ...yaad kar rahe the...'he now allowed his glance to lock in her...while Niyati evaded her glance as a querry was blinking on the back of her mind...

"is it apparent to you? is it? have you felt that along with nani...her granddaughter too..." she bludgeoned her mind and thought and with a flippant smile to cover the embarrassment she asked him,:'chay lenge na aap?'

Daya refused politely,:'jee nahi...main breakfast karke nikla hun...' he paused and added then,:'main bas...ekbar nani se...milkar hi...chala jayunga...'

Niyati gazed at his cringed face with immense gratefulness until the silence seemed odd...:'mmain...' she jabbered,:'mmain...nani ko...bulati hun...'

The lady shuffled with difficulty getting the support of Niyati and Daya leaped to his feet hurriedly as they approached...

:'mujhe pata tha betaa...' she breathed with enthusiasm,:'ke tu jaroor ayega...' Daya was about to say something but he wasn't given a chance as the lady started speaking in a breath,:'Nini ne phone kiya tha na tujhe? aur mujhe keh rahi thi ke tera number use pata nahi hai...pata hai kal se aisa lag raha tha...ke...kab main phir se tera ye pyara surat dekhungi...ajaa...mere pas...'

Daya was not only just perplexed but also astounded to a great extent as it was beyond his imagination that an almost stranger lady would shower so much affection upon him...He stood riveted like a befuddled one until the lady reprimanded Niyati,:'are Ninii...tu use chay nashta ke liye poochha ke nahi?'

Daya hastened in answering perhaps to rescue Niyati,:'nnahi nahi nanijee...main nashta kar liya hai...aur phir mujhe abhi hi nikalna hoga...office me der ho raha hai...'he finished with a suave smile..

:'ajeeb baat hai,'started the old lady,:'tujhe dekh ke...mujhe vishwas hi nahi hota hai...ke...tu...lashein kat ta rehta hai...Nini ke tarha...'

Niyati rolled her eyes and heaved a sigh of tiredness while Daya's lips curled to form a comical smile,as the lady continued,:'zara mere Nini ko sikha dena ke kaise lashein kat ke bhi muskura sakti hai woh...'

Daya's glance once accidentally fell upon Niyati's hardened face and sharpened glance and he this time was quick to interrupt, :'jee nahi nanijee...main...'he once more glanced at Niyati a little nervously and then revealed it,:'mmain...lashein nahi kat ta hun...woh...main to...officer hun...' he flung his hands to make her understand,:'woh...investigation...'

:'oooooo...' the old lady reacted soon ,:'matlab tu police hai...'

:'jee...' Daya answered coyly though with a grin...

The old lady said making her face sullen,:'tab to abhi hi tujhe jana parega...'

Daya lingering the smile over his lips said,:'aap to aaj thik lag rahe hain nanijee...quite recovered...aur ek do me thik ho jayenge aap...'

The lady grizzled unexpectedly making Niyati embarrassed,:'aur tujhe bada achcha bahana mil jayega na...yaha pe na ane ka..haa?'Daya's face reflected perplexity and for some seconds he remained bereft of speech until Niyati interposed,:'nani...tum bhi...agar Daya ko bahana hi banana hota...to aaj abhi kaise ata yaha pe?'

Daya endeavoured to widen his lips to force a smile quite inanely while Niyati batted for him with stout reasoning,:'tumhe pata nahi hai nani...CID officers kitne busy rehte hain...aur kitna kuchh ekattha karke wapas ana parta hai bureau me...Agar woh log...' she squinted her eyes once at him and a sardonical smile rippled through her lips,:'pehle woh log hi to evidence laate hain...nahi to...hum ko katne ke liye lash kaha se mile? aur hum kaam hi kaise kare?'

The old lady nodded with puckered brows indicating both of them that she was getting the meaning of Niyati's words while Niyati looked now straight at his eyes quizzically as if relishing the implied meaning she pointed out by her words...

Daya wasn't an obtuse not to grasp the alluded meaning and amazement blended with a little huff seeped through his hardened face...Just some words of Niyati as if brought him back in the past, when he persisted with dangerous defiance that the credit of solving the case should go to them instead of Niyati as they had assembled each evidence with care and then Niyati had put a hand to ascertain something from it...An abashed smile came into his lips recalling those scattered memories of his childish behaviour...

Niyati smirked with immense satisfaction mixed with a rippling delight as she gazed at the sqirm face of the man...The old lady intruded into Niyati's savoury moments by saying,:'phir to tujhe atak ke nahi rakh sakti hun...magar ye to keh ke ja ki shaam ko ekbar tu ayega hi ayega...Ye Nini mujhe verandah me bhi leke nahi jana chahti hai...aur...'

Niyati chimmed in with affectionate admonishment,:'naniiiii'

A genial smile crossed Daya's face as he inadvertently supported Niyati,:'yee to normal hai nanijee...abhi kal hi to...aap ka stiches huya tha...pehle to aap aur fit ban jaiye...phir...'

The old lady with much impatience sounded a little cantankerous,:'thik hai jaa...do mil ke mujhe aise hi bitha ke rakh le...' she plumped herself down on the couch with a despondent face making Daya very much staggered and at the same time he started regretting for his words...Niyati looked at his befuddled face with an assuring smile and nodded after that cuing him not to worry much about that...Daya ventured in feeble voice,:'thik hai...nnanijee...mmain...shaam ko...aaunga..'he delivered indecisively..

Niyati advanced towards Daya with a fatuous smile perhaps to alleviate the irregular thudding within herself,:'aap...fikr na kijiye...' she managed to utter in seeming to be confident voice,:'main ...mana lungi unhe...'

Daya felt bad gazing at the vexed face of the old lady until his gaze broken with a vauge feeling that Niyati was staring at him with sharpened glance..His glance fell and locked with her and there was a queer poignancy existed in her eyes..Her eyes had a queer language he never had seen it-something like derision mixed with curiosity and ...

He evaded his glance and a flippant smile quickly came perhaps to rescue him from the situation...:'chalta hun..' he breathed hurriedly and turned back...

:'suniye...'her voice floating behind him making him stopped...

Niyati slowly moved in front of him and casting a deepened glance at him,divulged as unemotionally as one could say,:'aap ko pareshan hone ka...jaroorat nahi...Main...meri nani ko...mana sakti hun...'

Daya,with further perplexity answered back,modestly,:'aap ki nani ko...aap se achcha...koi bhi mana nahi payega...ye to...normal hai doctor...'a rueful hue reflected over his face as he added,:'mujhe sirf...is baat ka bura lagega...ke...mere baato se...woh dukhi ho gaye hain...'

:'koi baat nahi,'Niyati countered promptly,:'dukh bhoolne me...unko zada waqt nahi lagega...'she emphasised over her each words without knowing the reason ,:'and she will be fine by evening...'she flashed a courteous smile,:'you just don't worry,' the cavalier manner in which she spoke the last words stabbed Daya deeply and he with a purple face left her residence...

As he was starting the bike...Niyati started feeling a stifling pain in the centre of her heart..Her nose crinkled and her brows furrowed and the vision of her eyes getting blurred immediately...Colour stole into her cheeks as she realised that once more she had been damning cruel to him and once more she reached at the summit of her idiocy hurting the man whom she desperately craving to erase from her heart & mind but who uneradicably existed within her...She gazed at his bike that disspitated fast out of her sight...and when she returned into the sitting room,she discovered a drop of tear coursing down her right cheek...


	5. Chapter 5

Sun was beaming down pouring orange hue over the sea which was still shimmering like a golden shawl...Niyati sitting in the lawn with her nani,kept gazing at the opalescent sky...The dusk was seeming beautiful yet an air of poignancy as if floating everywhere...Perhaps the tune of the ghazals made the atmosphere more agonizing if not for anyone else but for herself...The old lady pressing the tape recorder in her chest was listening to the slow & touching music savouring the cool onshore breeze and the fragrance of the dusk...

Niyati felt a wave of pain trippling through her heart as she could concentrate on the lyrics of a ghazal...

Ab agar ayo to jane ke liye maat ana

Ab agar ayo to jane ke liye maat ana

Sirf ehsaan jatane ke liye maat anaa

Ab agar ayo to jane ke liye maat ana..

Niyati felt her increased rate of breath and thumping of her heart

Maine palko pe tammanaye saja rakkhi hai...

dil me ummeed ki sau shamme jala rakkhi hai

ye haseen shamme bujhane ke liye maat ana...

Her face contorted unknowingly as she endeavoured in every possible way to stray her thoughts but everytime vain attempt mocked her with a deprecating smile...She tried to resort to practical analysis and with darting eyes and gnashing teeth she asked herself,:'why? Why are you idiotically relating this song with...with...him? It was absurd; it has no base;it is as vague as a rainbow in a desert;it is as evanescent as snowflakes...Why are you being so stupid Niyati? He won't come...he won't...'

Ab agar ayo tum jane ke liye maat ana...Sirf ehsaan jatane ke liye maat anaa...Ab agar ayo tum..jane ke liye maat anaaaaa...

Niyati started sweating profusely and the ache round her throat and chest rising incredibly..She closed her eyes with force and felt that she was assailed with a scare-scare to open the eyes and discover that someone was standing in front of her with his famous grin...

Pyar ki aag me..janjeere pighal sakti hai...pyar ki aag me janjeere pighal sakti hai...

chahnewalo ki taqdeere badal sakti hai...

Tum ho bebas ye batane ke liye maat ana...

Niyati's vision got blurry and she hurriedly moved towards a small tree which was adorned with flowers..She did it though for hiding her tears from nani but kneeling beside the tree,seeing the blossoming and vibrant flower she perceived that it would have been a relief if she could sob her heart out at least for half an hour...Her heart blasted inside,:'yes...yes I know...I...realise it now...even if late...pyar ki aag me...janjeere...pighal sakti hai...magar...kaise pata chala ye mujhe? kya main...kabhi pyar kiya? kya mere taqleef ka naam hi...pyar hai?kya mere bhabuk ban ke anab shanab sochne ka naam hi...pyar hai? phir...phir is me...sukh kaha hai? ye to bas...jeena mushkil hi...kar raha hai...Ye to har pal me...mujhe mar hi raha hai...Aur...main...jo ki...khud ko...itni strong samajhti thi...bar bar har rahi hun...bar bar galti kar rahi hun...bar bar...' she smirked as her face suffused with tears returning back to the lane of her thought,:'huh...chahnewale...ab tak...ye bhi pata nahi chala ke...' her teary eyes wandered now at the high sky..' koi...mujhe chahte bhi ya nahi...'

Ab agar ayo to jane ke liye maat ana...Sirf ehsan jatane ke liye maat ana...Ab agar ayo to jane ke liye maat anaaaa...

Niyati surreptiously wiped her tears out and dismissing every thoughts she tried to compliment the beauty of the flowers by her parlance...She patted gently some flowers before listening to more which fazed her further..

Ab tum ana jo tumhe mujh se mohabbat hai koi...

Ab tum ana jo tumhe mujh se mohabbat hai koi...

Mujh se milne ki agar tum ko bhi chahat hai koi...

Tum ko ye rasm nibhane ke liye maat ana...

Niyati started feeling a tremor within her-a tremor which perhaps rose in a mixture of annoyance fright and pain... Soliloquy started inside her,:'mujhe pata hai...aap nahi ayenge...nahi ayenge aap...Haa...aa bhi sakte hain...kyuki...mere liye to aap kabhi na aye...agar aye to...nani ke liye hi aye...magar sach kahiye to? mera nani ke liye aap ko aisa humdardi kyu huya? Is duniya me na jane kitne sare bebas besahara budhe log hain...meri nani hi kyu aapko mil gaye? kahiye...agar is bahane se...mere ghar na hi ate...to kya phark parta aap ko? shayad aap ko koi phark na parta...magar...mujhe bohut phark parta...aise tadapna na parta shayad tab mujhe...aise pagalpan se har waqt pareshan na rehti main...'she snorted as her heart kept speaking inside,:'huh...mohabbat...shabd ko kya aap samajh sakte hain? samajh sakte ho ki is shabd ke gehrai me jane ke liye...kitna ansu bahana parta hain...kitni raat jaag jaag ke beetana parta hai...kitni dard seene ka ek ek haddi ko tukra tukra kar dete hai...kitna taqleef saanse rok dete hai...pata hai aap ko? aap ko bas rasme nibhane ke liye ana ata hai... aur...' she startled listening to the voice of her nani,:'niniiiii...kis rang ka phool hai re? zara mujhe bhi to dikhaa...' It was as if she had hit the ground falling from the sky with a thud! She daubbed her moistened eyes and with a forced and feigned laugh she plucked a flower and came beside nani to show her,:'ye dekho...pink..Hai na khubsurat...'

But her sage granny stared at her smiling face instead of the flower and with a skittish chuckle she replied touching Niyati's cheeks,:'mere natin se zada khubsurat kaun hain? haa?'

Normally Niyati laughed it off with humour but this time,a pang as if shot through her heart erasing her smile away and she found herself beholding at some unknown object absent mindedly until granny almost yelled,:'aree..teri akho ka kajal kis ne bikhar diya?'

Niyati almost getting jolted and embarrassed, ventured to wipe out the smudging kajal and then said in huff,:'tumhe to phool ki taraf nazar hi nahi hai...'

:'hai na nazar...' answered granny with a mischivous faint smile...

Niyati's restive glance settled at last at the high sky...

Twilight merged into the darkness...

The dinstinct sough of the sea seemed an ache to Niyati and she endeavoured to persuade the old lady,:'nani...abhi to andhera ho gaya hai...chalo andar chale...'

:'are pagli...'nani laughed it off with affection,:'bachpan se bas...parai hi karna sikh liya...andhere me baithne ka kya maja...ye mehsus karne ka mauka na mila tujhe...'a prudent smile was hovering in her lips...

Niyati,guarding herself well,spluttered,irresolutely,:'kkya maja?' a rueful smirk came into her face as she repeated,:'andhera ka kya maja ho sakta hai?'

The lady squinted her eyes at her grand daughter once and then she settled more languidly on her chair and replied with a chuckle,:'andhera ka bhi...koi bhasha hai...pad sakti hai to pad le...' saying that much she went back concentrating on the mellifluous yet poignant tunes of the ghazals...

Restiveness was seeping through Niyati's face...An unreasonable peevishness surged vociferously over her already bleeding heart and she felt as if she would no more be able to repress sobs of repentance...She distanced herself from her nani and coming beside a thick trunk of a cedar tree she leaned against it...She endeavoured to occupy herself with the analysis hoping to find an easy way to be settled in a peaceful state..Her long brows drew together as her mind was busy with confusing and sprawling thoughts...

:'it's just an infatuation, Niyati,' promptitude inside nudged her once,and she felt happy to hear it,as a complacent smirk hovered at her lips,:' it's just a wild infatuation...otherwise how could you spend the last ten years? ' Niyati nodded with sagacity and a proud smile adorned her face until her gaze flickered to the darkness that cloaked their garden and the glinting fireflies looked like glowing spangles...someone's inexplicably pure grin started flickering before her eyes and this time he didn't let her go showing just his million dollar grin but murmured banteringly,:'aap bohut achcha analyst hai doctor...' Dark cloud of uprushing pain seeped through her face and she turning back rushed towards the lawn where her granny was still sitting,relishing the melody of the ghazals...She slumped down in a chair like a devastated tired one and allowed her gaze to the indigo canopy glittered with stars...

'Is it the sound of the darkness?' she closed her eyes and struggled badly to normalize her breath...


	6. Chapter 6

It was almost midnight...The old lady was already huddled in bed and kept urging her grand daughter to finish work so that she would be able to hit the bed early...Niyati was used to with such repeated nudging of her nani and she usually everyday dismissed it with an affectionate smile, but tonight she was already in a perturbed state of mind and anger was fermenting listening to the unrelenting whines of her nani...She felt it distinctly that her hands were not deft tonight and every work had been taking much more time than usual...

When she reached at the bedroom, the old lady had been sunk into deep sleep...Her sleeping face was serene and child like and staring at her face very abruptly something welled up within her...Something which could only dissipitate if she would be able to sob her heart out...Patting gently over her dishevelled hair,she left the room and stopped coming before the window...Waves of pain which were shoving upon her heart...couldn't be alleviated and she sobbed as silently as possible for about five minutes until her stronger self appeared before her to snub at her censoriously...

:'what has happened to you?' she put it before her with a sanctimonious smile and added,:'shame on you...Now a days you can do nothing except crying like a coward...Do you forget that you are a confident forensic expert and a responsible grand daughter of your grandmother...Do you forget that you wanted to be the support of your helpless grief stricken grandmother? You not only wanted to fill up the absence of your grandfather but...you wished to vanish the pang she had due to the untimely death of her daughter and son-in-law...But...

Niyati's face suffused with tears as she asked herself,demandingly,:'kkya...main khud...us dard se...bahar aa payi hun? ' her teary eyes glistened within stark darkness as sheer restiveness reflected through her eyes...:'kkya main khud...us ghao pe...marham laga payi hun?' her gaze roamed through the aquamarine sky and she almost jolted as someone's grin was getting visible there and as if he shaking his head with a bantering gesture answering her question,:'jee nahi doctor...Ghao pe marham to tab lagega na...jab aap lagane ka koshish karenge...' he paused and Niyati noticed bewilderingly that his solicitous face was gleaming with the moonlight...

For about a minute Niyati waited with bated breath and just when she was going to break the silence, the grin blended with the floating white cloudlets...Niyati felt the urge to yell with all her energy,:'aap ko kaise pata? aap ye kaise keh diya ke marham lagane ka koshish nahi kiya tha main?' Beads of sweat started standing over her forhead as she felt her rising heart beats...

:'aap kyu agaye beech me? kya jante hain aap mere bare me? aur agar ana hi hain...to...to aise...lukachhupi kyu khel rahe hain aap mere sath? kyu? ' she revolted inside herself and kept gazing at the floating clouds for at least ten minutes until felt worn out...She heaved a long sigh of tiredness and then picked up her cell attached with ear phone...With hesitation she pressed the radio button...her lips curled involuntarily thinking something but soon her face turned ashen listening to something...

socha tha jaisa waisa hi jeevan to hai magar

ab aur kis talash me bechain hai nazar

kudrat ne to meherban hai dariyadili ke sath

phir bhi koi kami si hai kyu zindegi ke sath

yu to guzar raha hai har ik pal khushi ke sath

phir bhi koi kami si hai kyu zindegi ke sath

A ghazal programme was running there after midnight and Niyati accidentally became one of the listeners...It left her perplexed and fizzled...It left her ruminative and reflective...Darting her eyes here & there she tried to forget that...the words were so true for her own life...She endeavoured to erase the touching tune that abruptly piercing into her heart...causing an unrelenting aching pressure in the centre of her bosom...She switched the radio off and coming at the threshold of the bedroom she once checked her nani... before almost tiptoeing into her study room cum library...Turning on the table lamp she came before her book shelf and rummaged in there for a diary..Her face was glowing with desperation and an inexplicable yearn...quiff of hair was falling into her eyes repeatedly and everytime she moved it aside with something akin to a mixture of arrogance and frenzied passion in order to comb through every diary and finally the visible restiveness was soothed...Her agitation was seeming to be assuaged...She slowly dragged herself into the chair and keeping the diary over the table she took a photograph out of it...

Blowing air from her lips she tried to wipe the dust off it and then patted someone's face wth care with just one finger of her...Her eyes deepened and gleamed...crimson colour of pain rushed into her seeming to be strong face and her jaws bobbed up & down in her effort to check tears...Nine years back...when she was a part of CID as a forensic expert, it was clicked then...It was Frerick's birthday and everyone was gathered to celebrate it...But why her eyes fixed at once place and more specifically at just one person in it within the crowd? He had been flashing such a pure grin-she never had noticed it before...or might it be possible that she could gauge the intensity of his innocence only now-after long nine years...She patted it several times before smirking at her idiocy and then locked it back where it had been kept in the past...She shook her head to get rid off the unsolicited shame she was feeling for behaving like a silly scatterbrain...Her fingers grasped a pen tight and then she ventured to scribble something in a page of that diary...But her fingers denied until she could slowly spelled ...'You are a liar'...her pen stopped as her nose wrinkled in suppressing a surging emotion which perhaps could be called huff...She further wrote,'your words has no weightage..you can't make your words true...' and then suddenly his woebegone face of morning sparkled before her eyes and she felt everything blurry infront of her eyes...

With a whimper of pain she darkened those words she had just written and tearing the page roughly she smashed it into a ball and then threw it at a corner with force...Tears made runnels down her cheeks and she with a crumpled face tried in a vein effort to wipe her tears off and then held her pen again to write further...

'I am a liar actually...What I wished couldn't reveal it...It's not your fault...you always have an unerring attitude towards everything...Never a tint of pretence I had seen within you...It was my niggardly attitude which always becomes culprit...Can you tell me with your prudence why ...why I lost ...I lost everything due to my coarseness...my arrogance? Even if late...but I have started feeling that I have strangled my true self considering that the hard outer shell of mine which...I had ...impelled to make at one point of my life was my identity...I have confined myself foolishly with smug satisfaction that I had become a strong woman...but had never understood the rudiment of life that strength could be felt even in the absence of brashness and arrogance...I buoyed myself up with a feeling that arrogance was the other name of strength and in order to protect oneself everyone should have to be aggressive and curt in behaviour...

...I...I am confessing...before you...that...I was terribly wrong...and perhaps you have no knowledge about the fact that I was able to detect my error...just...because...because...of you...' she stopped and startled skimming over the words she just wrote like a storm and once she wished to tear this page also making it a smashing ball but...A smirk came in her lips as her mind murmured inside her,:'us kharoos kaise pad sakta hai ye sab?' she exhaled and closed the diary to keep it at it's orginal position with an affectionate smile...It seemed that she had been succeeded in getting rid off a heavy burden temporarily..She turned the light off and kept sitting there twiddling with her cell phone...After much irresolute efforts she searched his number and then continued dangling between pressing the call button and not pressing it...Her tired and a little puffy eyes fell upon the wall clock making her aware that it was half past one and she released a long sigh perceiving the fact it was not the appropriate time to call a stranger man...Stranger? Is he? Niyati's lips curled as she allowed her thoughts to stray...He couldn't be called a stranger...After all she had worked with him as a team for more than one and a half year and...shared so many brief yet indissoluble moments together...She leaned back languidly as her eyes almost closed in trance cogitating about those moments...

Oh that moment when she made him scared telling a lie that she had a heart attack!..Niyati's face broadened converting into a grin while her eyes gleamed with an inexplicable glow...

'stupid' she whispered to herself and then she started laughing though with low voice remembering the staggered face of Daya when the whole team rushed into forensic to see how she had been coping with heart attack...but...very abruptly the laughter dried away as a pang started squeezing her heart...She felt perplexed...until her one self lambasted censoriously :'didn't you know at the time of cracking that joke that he would be the person who would be worried most to hear such a news...? why should he get worried for you? It was not the fact that he had any special interest in you but he had such a nature who got worried for everyone..He had an unstinting generosity for every team mates...and Niyati...if you are brave enough you admit...it is not called stupidity...but solicitude...It is not something for which he deserves a mere disdainful laugh off but he deserves respect...'

Niyati stared vacantly at the top of the table for some times unknowingly making her face ashen...It seemed as if she was sitting breathless till her lips were pressed with a faint chuckle and her glance deepened...She kept ruminating about all the incidents with a note of rippling bliss blended with a fright...perhaps fright came as she discerned that she was standing at the edge of discovering a new angle from where everything seemed ineffably beautiful...Another incident came floating to her mind when she jestfully had pretended to drink something which could be poisonous and then seeing everyone silent she had teased him with candour saying that she had expected atleast from him to rush to her and stopped her drinking that poisonous liquor...A soft glow seemed raditaing from her face as her mind asked herself,:'did you say it without any cause or...did you really expect something from him? Wasn't it your yearn to know how he would react seeing you in danger?'

'perhaps' murmured Niyati unknowingly,:now a days I can't understand myself...'she lied there with visible nonchalance as a rare lassitude descended upon her...A frisson of excitement suddenly passed down her spine as she remembered how mischievously Daya flirted with her praising her smile...Did he say it just for having fun? or...did he mean it...Her brows puckered together as a huff tried to gnawed at her heart badly...She closed her eyes further and ventured to recall the scene...ACP sir was almost dancing in delight having a misconception that she had concluded wrong about the death of the victim...He thought it had been a heart attack while it turned out to be the venom of snake...Daya had delivered with humour that they should leave forensic as it seemed that it had been a fun day for forensic...She herself promptly urged him not to leave forensic but to dance along with ACP sir not feeling shy...and then only Daya divulged though with a little hesitation that he hadn't any qualm of dancing as she had been in good mood and that she ...looked beautiful...when she smiled!...Niyati felt further her raising pulse as Daya's voice seemed to tingle her neck..:'haste huye aap bohut...khubsurat lagte hain...'

Her eyes flung open...with a fright...and she started panting darting her eyes around her...She scrabbled for the clock and it indicated 2 A.M..She released a long sigh as a thought hit her that how much time she would have to spend to see the sunlight...because...she started scaring the nights...the silent nights...the lonely nights...the nights of bearing surging pain...the nights of hidden sobs...the nights...of remembering a grin...of someone...and...

She sprang up from the chair toying with the idea of going out into the lawn...But as she came beside the window,she felt that something she couldn't discard from her mind...Her eyes almost closed in trance as she kept ruminating whether it would be right or not to call him in the next morning...but...would she be able to talk normally with him suppressing the immense peevishness which she was toteing since the evening...Why didn't he come once? why didn't he keep his spoken words? Was it the fact that he simply had forgotten to visit her aged grandmother whom he perhaps considered like an old sourpuss and her wish as capricious whims or...her catty comments in the morning...prevented him from coming further...Couldn't it be possible that he felt affronted by her curt behaviour and thus refrained himself from visiting her granny even if he had enough crave...Perhaps her inordinate indifference hurt him...He...seemed to be...a sensitive man...and even if he had maintained silence...her words wrapped in superfluous impertinence might play a role in hurting him...

A mocking smirk curled in the corner of her lips as she realised that the man had gradually learned to alleviate his displeasure...The man now had become more subtle and patient...He hadn't started any wrangle with her for her unfair brashness...He hadn't put any effort to prove himself right...Instead, he learned to madden her by his silence,by his forbearance...She felt as if blood in her body had been trippling in an inexplicable restiveness...As if her eyes were burning with yearn to see him at a glance...as if her ears yearned to listened to his voice...as if her lips were craving to have a witty repartee with him...Her glance deepened and a wisp of her curled hair came falling before her engrossed eyes...She closed her eyes in daze...Cool onshore breeze fanning her face making her hair unkempt until she startled to see the bantering smile of the man...

:'Doctor...CID wale...bada khudgarz aur moorkh hote hain..' the jestful yet ineffably attractive smile ebbed away making her staggered...befuddled...and something welled up inside her...It seemed like a flame of fire that she hadn't been able to extnguish in any effort...Was it just now ignited or had it been ignited long ago...even without her awareness? Hadn't she ventured to camouflage her emotion since she had worked in CID's forensic department? she felt her fists were tightened as she tried to transfer every discomfort there...but that couldn't help her either...and she resorted to a non fictional book based on history...but the lines were getting blurred as she felt a heavy burden descended upon her eyes...


	7. Chapter 7

She woke up with a start feeling that still her eyes were burning with lack of sleep...She leapt to her feet from the easy chair where she lied last night,carelessly and coming beside the window she felt that dawn came spreading her orange hue in the eastern sky...A loose smile touched her lips watching the birds came out from their nests. It seemed as if for some seconds she was relaxed and relieved from all those disturbing thoughts...but that couldn't last for long as she was desirous to be decisive and with a determination she finalised something within her mind...

She took a bath quickly perhaps to be freed from the weariness of last night and then endeavoured to make herself fortified by silent prayer until tears coursed down her cheeks...She wiped her suffused face and picking up the cell phone pressed the 'call' button...

:'Shanta? Aj thori jaldi asakti ho tum?'

"Okay...adhe ghante me ajao phir...' she cut the line,not sparing much words...and then heaved a long sigh...Her eyes narrowed and her brows furrowed and for some minutes the expression prevailed until a smile of confidence mingled with a tint of shyness spread over her face...

After an hour Niyati came out of her residence...Her floral top over her blue jeans seemed to animate her personality...A thrill crossed her face as she concealed her mission from her grandmother and she just couldn't imagine how the old lady would be reacting when her mission would be unveiled...

Daya was rubbing shaving cream over his cheeks in an exasperated gesture...The servant hadn't come the day before and it seemed that he wouldn't come that day too...He had been humming a tune to dispel the anger that had been churning inside him for the untimely absent of the servant...He sat in a chair and skimming over the clock he hurried his pace and just at that moment the doorbell jingled...Daya's jaws hardened as he prepared himself to reprimand his servant and with an annoyed expression over his face he opened the door finding himself in bafflement...

Doctor Niyati Pradhan was standing at the threshold with a face that carried a loose yet wry smile...It was not only unexpected for Daya but also something impossible and that was the cause he stood riveted there with a staggered expression...Niyati felt distinctly that a rippling sensation was bubbling inside her-a sensation that was perhaps nearer to 'delight'...but she hadn't an iota of wish to analyse her own feelings but to behold at the flummoxed face of the man..because that was something she yearned for years,she simply loved to do...She couldn't explain though to even herself...perhaps with the association of perplexity his innocense got the opportunity to permeated through his face more vividly...and now...she discovered that his face was almost covered with the white liquid soap and a laughter she couldn't resist...

:'bada pareshan ho gaye aap darwaza khol ke...' she said finally in a teasing tone with a throaty laugh...

Daya put every effort to cover the embarrassment with a demure smile and asked her to come inside suavely,:'andar aaiye...please...'

Niyati still fixing her eyes upon the man's almost diffident smile,entered into the well decorated hallroom...Daya indicated a fluffy couch jabbering,:'baithiye...'

Niyati's eyes roamed over every object of the hallroom and she nodded with a sage smile like a connoisseur...

Daya hastened in wiping the shaving cream from his face while Niyati after sitting on the couch, shot him a quizzical glance,saying,:'I think...mera ana...aap ke liye...' her lips were pressed in confident gesture,:'ek bohut bada surprise tha...'

Daya flashed a squirm smile and temporized in answering back while Niyati added quickly with a coquettish glance,:' aap ka surat dekh ke aisa laga ke...bhoot dekh ke bhi...' pent up laughter couldn't be held back atleast for some seconds,:'aap itna na darenge...'

Daya replied this time jestfully,:'ye to normal hai doctor...bhoot ko phir bhi...asani se khatirdari kiya ja sakta hai...' his face turned jocose as he waited for her reply...Niyati felt a flowing pleasure inside her but she made her face grim pretentiously and with an air of superciliousness she divulged,:'soch rahi thi ke...bina koi introduction ke...yaha ane ka wajah...aap ko...' she inhaled and then heaved deliberately and perhaps unknowingly to make the situation tensed and then sharply looking at him declared,with a visible smugness,:'bata hi dun...magar...' she paused adding the piquancy of the atmosphere...

Daya's brows were puckered as he was waiting for the words of Niyati but leaving him waiting, Niyati peeping inside with curious glance...After Noticing her for some seconds,Daya remarked,inquisitively,:'kis ko dhoond rahi hain aap?'

Niyati with a natural smirk and smile replied back,:'Mrs Daya ko...' twinkling mischief glinted in her eyes as she added,:'main to soch rahi thi ke...aap ke wife abhi mujhe khatirdari karne ayenge...magar...jaise aap...shayad waise hi...aap ka wife...'

Daya was getting dumbstruck during Niyati's words, knowing the thoughts of her and his lips parted; eyes turned radiant with mischief as his term of countering came,:'aaah...To abhi pata chala ki...kise dhoond rahi hain aap...magar...aap ko mayus ho ke hi laut jana parega...' feigned dejection he could reflect upon his face well...

:'kyu?' Niyati asked promptly though she felt that her heart was pounding trecherously against her ribs...

:'kyuki...meri wife unki maike me hi rehti hain...' Daya answered evasively,intentionally...

Niyati felt as if something inside would explode in few minutes as she asked with quivering lips,:'matlab? jhagra kiya kya aap uske sath bhi?'

:'hmmm..' answered Daya still pervading his face with sparkling humour...

:'ha?' Niyati exclaimed and looked at him in a shocking gesture and though she tried hard to curb her emotion but the intemperate curiosity was seeping through her face that almost turned purple by that time...

:'hmmm..' Daya repeated repressing the laughter without his knowledge that his effort in repressing made his face more charming...

Niyati gazed at him in mesmeric enchantment though Daya received the silence as her bafflement and without torturing her more, he now proclaimed with a frank chortle,:'samajh me nahi araha hai ke...aaj sooraj kaha se uga hai...ya phir uga bhi ya nahi...'

Slight peevishness touched Niyati's eyes as she was super prompt in asking,:'kyu?' she paused and then resurrected back,:'main aap ke ghar ayi hun...is liye?' a smirk was hovering in the corner of her lips...

Daya heaved a long sigh and then sitting in front of her,he marshalled all his thoughts and when he was just about to reveal,he was perplexed listening to her voice,:'kal shaam kya huya tha?' Niyati asked it in low voice and unlike her natural instinct to pronounce every word clearly,confidently...

Daya raised his eyes at her astoundingly while Niyati looked at some other object visibly with blase apathy...

Daya with a queer smile,replied back flinging his hands,:'kkuch bhi nahi...achcha khasa tha main...shayad ...duty kar raha...' his words were interposed dangerously as she waded in fiercely,:'To phir...' she paused abruptly and then snorted with derision looking at some uknown object...

Daya stared at her enraging face with a rueful expression and summoned all his courage to ask her,:'nani kaisi hain?'

Niyati remained silence...Daya ventured to discern the mood of her with a tint of scare and then further asked,:'mujh pe...zada gussa to nahi kiya?'

Niyati turned her face towards Daya sharply casting a fuming glance at him and started answering in a mincing and mocking voice,:'jee haa...gussa to kiya...magar aadat ho jayega...jab woh ye samajh jayenge ki...' her voice turned thicker and hard and face too became hardened,:'kuchh llllog...hawa me baat karna pasand karte hain aur ye janke...woh ...kisi pe...jhutha ummeed rakhna band kar denge...' Niyati was harsh, and at the pinnacle of attack...

A pall of darkness descended upon his face as he answered back after a minute,:'aap ka baato se...mujhe laga tha ke...aap unko...achche se mana sakti hain...'

:'of course main unko achche se mana sakti hun...' she was quick in countering,:'kis ne kaha ke main mana nahi payi?'

Daya replied late,with a wan smile,:'sach kahu?'

Niyati looked at him astoundingly and still her eyes were burning in anger while Daya's wan smile slowly converted into a conciliatory gesture as he jabbered,:'aap ka baato se mujhe laga tha ki...mere waha pe jana,'he paused and resumed within five seconds,:'nani se milna...aap pasand nahi kar rahe hain...' he sighed revealing the truth and almost catapulted Niyati into a baffling state...Before Daya could utter anything more, she recalled that she had come there to seek an apology for her brashness and...instead of that she began further a bitter row with ...It seemed someone cudgelled her conscience impelling her to feel ashamed...

Niyati's silence though befuddled Daya more and he was keen to explain a little more,:'abhi...bhala hi...mujhe...nani ka...kitna bhi...yaad aye..magar ...' he squinted eyes to notice her but it didn't appear to him that she was convinced at all and her dumbness was more mystifying...,:'aap ko na khush karke...nani se milna...' Daya paused and uttered the rest with cough,:'sahi nahi laga...'

Niyati though was burning inside with repentance,Daya's words as if instantly blending with her flowing blood rippled in delight...Her lips curled in her effort to suppress the secret bliss...

Daya remained silent in discomfiture waiting for her to react and remark...Niyati's eyes gleamed abnormally gazing at the shining floor of Daya's hallroom...Hadn't she yearned to know that? Hadn't she come here to know whether it was Daya's careless oblivion or...it was the cue his sensitive and sensible heart received by her brusque manner in which she bade him goodbye..

She snorted in her effort to overcome the discomfort and then turning her face towards Daya with a candid smile,she jabbered irresolutely,:'actually...main isi liye hi yaha pe ayi...'She once glanced at her dangling crossed leg and then added more,:'shayad...us din..mera bartaab..aap ko sahi nahi laga...magar...'she scrabbled in darkness for some words and after an inane yet attractive smile,she mumbled further,:'samajhte honge aap..ki...nani bachcho jaise hain..Na samajh...ziddi...'she paused saying that much and sighed perhaps to assuage the irregular beating of her heart...

Daya could interrupt her,assuring her that she shouldn't bother about his inconvenience as he liked the companionship of her nani but he chose to maintain silence as Niyati's capriciousness flummoxed him the most...Niyati though anticipated some words from the man...and his silence making her disconcerted..

:'to...'she tried to sound confident,:'main socha ke...'throbbing heart was making her dumb,:'it ..won't be ..possible for you...'she flashed a fatuous smile perhaps to wipe the embarrassment off her face..

Daya nodded with a mild judicious smile resisting himself from asking her some questions while Niyati put it a little scornfully,:'waiseee...'her lips curled forming a sultry smile,:'bada bad tameez hain aap..?'

Daya almost jolted as a scare passing down his spine-the scare he felt when that lady's eccentricity nonplused him..Though he managed to flash a gentle smile,concealing the asperity of his heart,:'ab tak to mere hisab se...koi bad tameezi nahi kiya,'he responded with a seeming to be friendly smile,:'magar haa...aap kaa hisab se ..kya kiya...woh to mujhe samajh me nahi aya...' perplexity mingled with ingenuity reflected through his amiable smile while Niyati hadn't any wish to squander the opportunity to savour it..Her puffy eyes those she endeavoured to adorn with kajal,gazed at the beatific naivety of his face...

Daya felt puzzled to be the object of Niyati's queer glance and Niyati gauged that well as nearly twenty seconds elasped..and she with a much needed smirk turned her face away holding the topic back,:'itna dhoond dhoond ke aap ke ghar ana para..., na hi apne koi pata diya tha...na hi phone number...aur upar se...'

Daya's face darkened with a guilt while Niyati continued,:'ek baar poochhne ka bhi jaroorat nahi samjhe aap...ki ...kaise main ayi...'

a taunting smile decked her face while Daya spluttered urgently,:'I'm so sorry...actually ...' saying that much he noticed the teasing curl in the corner of her lips and a bantering smile ablazed his already bright face as he stated trying to maintain an inquisitive gesture,:'waiseee...sach me...aap ayi kaise?'

Niyati further looked at him with a broad grin this time though sarcasm still oozed from her voice,:'ye aap abhi poochh rahe hain? Jo sawal ...mujhe dekh ke hi aap ke dimag me ana chaiye tha woh poochhne me itniiii der?' she continued jeering at him,:'mujhe to lagta tha ke aap ek...' she squinted her eyes at him tantalizingly to utter the rest,:'bohut achcha detective hain...'

Daya, repressing the shaft of anger that pestering him inside, retorted back though with an impish chuckle,:'waisee...ek kyu...dimag me kam se kam dus bara sawal hain...' his brows puckered once amusingly and then he added,:'magar ek bhi aap ko poochhne ka layek nahi hain doctor...'

Niyati's expression converted quickly from a relishing one to a annoying one and she snapped,:'kyu?'

Daya withdrawn quickly,:'khair...shayad aap mere pichhle apartment me gaye honge...kyuki woh hi aap ka ghar ke pas hai...phir waha se pata kar liya mera address aur dhoond liya...' he was heckled as Niyati rasped,:'kaun sa sawal chhupa rahe hain aap apne dimag me?' her face was seeming annoyed like a child...

Daya flashed an ingenuous smile and dawdled,:' chaliye maan liya main achcha detective nahi hun...abhi to aap khush hain na?'

:'ye mere sawal ka jabab nahi hai Mr Daya', she was sounding husky once again...:'kaun sa sawal aap ke dimag me hain jo chhupa ke achcha ban ne ka natak kar rahe hain aap?' it was abrupt in which way she reach at the paroxysm of rage making Daya extremely nonplussed...For about a minute he couldn't seize that how he was feeling and after that he felt as if a wave of bitter shame flowing inside him...Colour stole into his face and he said with a resigned smile,:'mujhe natak karna nahi ata hai doctor...' his offended eyelids batted quickly in his effort to overcome the discomfort associated with the insult...,:'waise...mann ya dimag me ...jo bhi sawal paida hote hain...'he paused and then came back stoutly,:'woh sab kuchh tab hi bataya ja sakta hai doctor...jab samnewala...bohut achcha dost ho...aur woh bato baato me...gussa na kare...' revealed he with frank confession,trying to maintain normal gesture...

:'I am sorry' ,Niyati apologised earnestly as she herself was confused that why she had the proclivity to hurt him repeatedly...:'achcha hota agar...andar ake hi...main aap ko...mere yaha pe ane ka wajah bata deti...' she averred in a completely different mood though inside her she was fidgeting with a searing guilt,:'magar kya karu...' she stated quite aimlessly and stopped not being able to reveal the rest that she craved like an insane to have such frivolous conversation with him...She yearned for it for two whole nights! being sleepless...

Daya felt Niyati's repentance and a guilt shot him like a prick for taking her whimsical behaviour so seriously..With a conciliatory gesture he ventured to ease the atmosphere,:'woh to mujhe pata hai...'his face turned humorous again,:'jab aap nanijee ki Nini ban ke baat karte hain...tab aap...,' he paused flashing a placid smile at her and then,:'ek bachchi lagti hain...'

Waves of tickling pleasures ruffled inside her and she turned her face away with a half smirk to hide the faint smile of immense content...Daya continued maintaining the serenity,:'Nanijee hi bheje hain aap ko...'

Niyati desired to burst into a loud chortle enjoying Daya's wrong conclusion but she bridled her fervour and a poised chuckle of raillery spread over her face as she finally turning her face locked gaze with him,accidentally and stated with a priggish smile,:'aap ka koshish to achcha tha...magar woh...' her nose flared in her effort to smile unflinchingly,:'galat nikla Inspector saab,' a frisson of wild pleasure passing through her spine tingled reaching at the centre of her bosom as Daya received her teasing words with equal vigour and a puckish smile and this time he didn't repeat the fault again of remaining silent,:'tooo...' he pretended to guess,:'aap nanijee ko surprise dena chahte hain aaj shaam...' he was going to add something more but Niyati's ashen face was the tacit signal that he was right this time in conjecturing...Niyati glanced at him with a mixture of astonishment,reproof and affection and a loose smile hung from her face as she uttered pressing her lips,:'I must apologise', her lustrous eyes busied scrutinising his humorous face as she resumed,:'aap jitna bhole dikhte hain...utna to hain nahi...'

Daya gave a throaty laugh saying,:'bhola kyu...kahiye buddhu...bebquf...kyu?'

Niyati felt that she should now exhale the air as she perhaps stayed breathless in the last minute...

Daya veered the topic sagaciously,:'khair...aap mere sath...nashta karenge na?' he asked with visible hesitation

Niyati chuckled by herself thinking that after so long she would going to have breakfast with him at his residence...But would it be right to accept it? Wouldn't he consider her as a troublesome vagabond who had no value? Her face clouded with confusion...'No...he couldn't think so low about someone; he hasn't the attribute to belittle people; he is a man of sobriety...' her mind prompted her easing the lines of worry over her forehead...

:'doctor...' muttered Daya irresolutely...

She jolted as Daya's rich voice dashed onto her ear and with a mischievous smile,she replied back,:'agar aap mann hi mann yehi soch rahe hain..ke...' her face contorted in an attempt to tease him,:'ye kaise musibaat agayi hain...abhi is bad dimag aurat ke sath baith ke nashta karna parega...tab to main...chali jati hun', she abruptly leapt to her feet with a coquettish grin making Daya befuddled primarily and then he recovered quickly and an impish chuckle spread over his face as his words almost bordered to mild admonishment,:'lagta hai mazak karna aap ka nasha hai...' his eyes glinted with delight making Niyati staggered and then he returned back,with an ingenuine grin,:'chup chap baithiye...main nashta banake aap ko bulata hun...' when he twirled back,Niyati remarked comically,:'chup chap baithna parega?'

Daya with a bantering smile countered,:'waise...baithke mujhe gali dene ka mann kare to de sakte hain aap...' he moved towards kitchen while Niyati with a snotty smile kept gazing at his walk until he disappeared...


	8. Chapter 8

A half smirk still pervaded her face as she kept thinking about their almost childish wrangle so far...but why a weird pleasure was bubbling inside her like electric sparks? She with slow and casual steps went into the lawn that was attached to the garden...

Bright flowers of different colours ablazed the garden and scent was wafting along by the breeze...Niyati sniffed the scent deep inside her heart and she herself was stupefied feeling that she had started finding delight in every normal happening of the nature...Had she ever gaze at the aquamarine sky with bliss? Had she ever feel the necessity of staring at the blooming flowers? Had she ever desired to spend her time to experience the exuberant colour of the nature? A tint of shyness reflected through her faint smile as she busied herself in patting a sunflower gently..Tattered pieces of their conversation floated

into her mind..."mann aur dimag me jo bhi sawal paida hote hain woh sab kuchh tab hi bataya ja sakta hai jab saamnewala bohut achcha dost ho...' her face twitched as a note of peevishness touched her heart ..'His words revealed that he didn't consider her as his friend...but then...what did he feel for her? A mere acquaintance? an ex colleague?' Niyati though was desirous to be angry with the man but this time astoundingly she felt that anger was denying to be descended upon her...Perhaps the tendency she had to get angry imagining about the injury of her dignity,had frayed considerably in the recent past...But then coming to the main point, why he commented so rudely about their relationship? It could be the truth that they were not best friends but...hadn't their relationship thawed a little since she had the opportunity to know him better in his apartment? Didn't he allow himself in pranking friendly jokes at her when she used to work with him? Didn't he try to assure her grandmother by saying that he had been a good friend of her? Didn't he say himself that what he said to nani about their friendship wasn't a lie? Then...how could he allow himself to say so?'

Her furrowed brows straightened as she was startled getting his voice,:'doctor...' it seemed to be very close to her and a tingling sensation waved through her back...She kept riveting there for making her composed.

:'nashta ready hai doctor...' a tinge of hesitation seeped through his voice spreading a wry smile on her face...She turned back to face him steadily and approched in a teasing tone,:'to aap mere nani ke pas jhooth kaha tha?' Daya though was confounded inside but he too had been habituated a little to face the baffling capriciousness of her nature...With an appearing to be poised smile, he moved ahead slowly along with her and replied back lately,:'jaha tak mujhe yaad hai...jhooth to main kaha nahi...' he paused and then returned back with pinpointed accuracy making her quite bemused,:'magar haa...Agar woh dosti ki baat aap ke liye jhooth hai...to phir haa jhooth to kaha tha...'

Niyati pressed her lips with a cryptic smile and remarked in a taunting voice,:'magar abhi kuchh der pehle too...aap khud kaha ki...main aap ki dost nahi...?'

They both entered into the hallroom and Daya's face further adorned with an amusing smile as he responded with candour,:'dost kabhi dost pe itna gussa nahi karte hain...' he paused moving ahead while Niyati flashed an indulging grin but startled as Daya added further,razzingly,:'aur na hi ye sochte hain...ki...dost ke dimag me kuchh ulta sidhe baat hain...'

Niyati's eyes gleamed reprovingly and a tempting smile slowly brightened her face as she kept following Daya to go to the dining room...

:'baithiye please...' stated Daya with as much humbleness as he could muster...

Niyati's restive eyes darted everywhere noticing the austere style of the room and with an appreciating glance she looked at him..

Daya uttered slowly as he was serving her hot steamy alu parathas,:'aap ko kya...interior designing ka shaukh hai?'

Niyati shot him an astonishing glance asking,:'aap ko kaise pata chala?'

Daya' brows raised with humour and just flashed an inscrutable grin in between serving raita and achar... Niyati though with a childish giggle raised her both hands literally saying,:'chaliye maan leti hun...aap ek achcha detective hain... done?' Daya too with a throaty laugh,countered,:'waisee...mera detective skill dikhane ke liye aap ko ye poochha nahi tha...'

:'pata hai mujhe,'replied Niyati in a confident gesture digging her teeth into steamy paratha while Daya looked at her promptly astoundingly,she kept dipping a piece of paratha into the spicy raita and said,:'flaunt karna...aap ka characteristic nahi hai...' she crammed some more pieces into her mouth and kept saying in a inconceivable pronounciation,:' aap ko to jo ata hai...us ko bhi kabhi...shor machake...kehte nahi hain aap... ' she finished chewing and said,:'ha magar...kyuki aap bohut humble hain...isliye arrogance pasand nahi ata hai aap ko...Ek arrogant creature ko...' she licked her pickleful of fingers and added,:'sabak sikhana ata hai aap ko...'

Daya looked at her with a mixture of surprise and amusement watching her devouring the food like a voracious eating child..

:'yaad hai aap ko...'she further stated with a little laugh,:'kaise aap mujhe sabak sikhane ke liye kaha tha ki...' another piece of paratha entered into her mouth before divulging,:'case aap aur Abhijeet milke solve kiye hain...,us me is Niyati Prdhan ki koi contribution nahi hai'

A big grin came into Daya's face as he nodded a little shyly and before he could say a word,she pre-empted,:'jo bhi kiya tha aapne...achcha hi kiya tha..'her eyes gleamed in repressed delight,:'mujh jaise ek bad dimag ko waise hi shiksha dena jaroori tha...' her smile widened sending Daya at the pinnacle of astonishment..Though he tried to check it back and the smile lingered on his face as he remarked with jest,:'ye baat doctor Pradhan jaise nahi hai...'

A darkened gloom inconceivably spread over her face as she abruptly stopped eating...It seemed to Niyati that she should unravel everything..Wouldn't it be an opportunity to tell him...how his repulsiveness towards her dogmatism helped her to change herself...He still considered herself as a snobbish pompous woman...Wouldn't it be a chance to reveal how he had changed her from a disdainful creature to a ...a...if not anything great but at least a grateful creature and...she wouldn't claim even a crumb of credit for the change...but...she would perhaps be the most happy person to give the whole credit to him...

Tears stabbed at her eyes smartingly,embarrassingly..Her face turned purple in her effort to seize abrupt surging emotion and though she tried but her efforts were not enough to conceal it from Daya's scrupulous avid eyes..His face hardened as guilt blending with perplexity seeped through,:'agar kuchh..'he mumbled,helplessly,:'kuchh galat keh diya to...maafi chahhta hun doctor..'

Niyati hastened in tremulous voice,:'aap ka galati...nahi hai Daya..'daubing her eyes with the scarf she had worn she further looked at her dish though kept pecking at the food..After the stifling silence of about solid three minute,she felt the need to look at him forcing a smile that could reassure the very flummoxed man who perhaps was feeling guilty for her queer behaviour..Daya too flashed a nervous titter perhaps for the atonement and in order to restore back the normalcy he hastened in asking her,:'by the way...Nani ke pas kis ko chhor ke ayi hain aap?'

Niyati too desired desperately to come back into conversation and she grasped the chance immediately with a sneer,:'ye aap ko kaise pata chala?'

Daya replied back with a frank smile,:'ye guess karne ke liye koi extra skill ka jaroorat nahi tha doctor...'his smile turned a little puckish as he continued,:'nani ko akele chhor ke ate aap...to bohut jaldi rehta aap ko...'

:'aur aap ko jaldi chhutkara mil jata is bad dimag ajjeeb si aurat se..'Niyati teased him,though her inner self was craving to listen to his answer...She yearned to know whether he treated her as a troublesome creature or...

A coy smile rippled through Daya's shy face as his eyes roamed over here & there before settling at Niyati's eager face,:'waise...aap ne bataya nahi ki...' he paused making Niyati annoyed,:'kaisa surprise plan hai nani ke liye?'His priceless smile was enough to redeem the surliness that had began to descend upon her,watching the way the man parried her question..

She with a cherishing face revealed,leaning back,:'abhi woh..mujh pe...bohut gussa kar rahe hain...'her eyes turned fervent in imagination,:'aur...gussa ke baad...jab woh ...' she paused and it seemed as if she returned back into the reality with a thud and asked worriedly,:'by the way...aaj shaam aap arahe hain na?'a little shame reflected through her words as she reminded how she hurt the man last time when he had went to her residence..

Daya heaved a sigh and then kept chuckling in a manner as if he had no hurry in answering her back..

Niyati waited with bated breath and impatience impelled her to blurt out,:'kya huya? ayenge na aap?'

Daya answered quite courageously,:'kya sab ko hi aap pehle gussa dilate hain?'

Niyati snorted with irritation and her eyes rolled in reflex as she snapped,:'waise kisi ko gussa dilana koi aap se sikhe...'

Daya couldn't repress but burst into a chortle seeing her sullen face and divulging thereafter,:'waisee...aap ka pura plan jab ...mujh pe dependent hai ...tab kya karu? ana to parega...'laughter still bubbling inside him as he was trying to rile her with feigned smugness..

Niyati squinted her eyes at him with a delicious disdain before smirking with a queen's arrogance..A piece of paratha went into her mouth before her glance fell upon him with a pretentious & deliberate nonchalance,:'zada tebar dikhane ka jaroorat nahi hai...aap nahi asakte hain to ...to...'she fumbled for a little before coming back,:'to main aur nani milke beach pe chale jayenge...'

A pleasant chuckle appeared on Daya's face as he replied comically,:'I mean phir...tebar bas...aap hi dikhayenge..Right?'

Niyati's restive eyes as if crystallized and fixed at the man as her face hardened and her jaws started protruding in anger..She abruptly tugged her vanity bag and leapt to her feet but before she could turn back in haste and in a flame of rage,Daya resorted to submission raising his hands up,:'doctor please...ruk jaiye...'he too sprang up from the chair..The colour of perplexity blending with his skittishness made his face inexplicably magnetic...Niyati's anger started melting staring at his face...

:'bada jaldi gussa ata hai aap ko..'remarked Daya with a flummoxed half smirk..

Niyati closed her eyes forefully and then turned her glance elsewhere still maintaining peevishness..

Daya sighed with a little relief before resurrecting back with a playful chuckle,:' badi khudgarz hain aap?'

Niyati glanced at him sharply promptly making her embellished eyes vivid while Daya now with a scared gesture,revealed,:'I mean...bina batake hi ja rahe hain ki...nashta kaisa tha...'

Niyati stared at him for some seconds cherishing the priceless bafflement over his face and then being awakened,she just smirked to get rid off the embarrassment of gazing at him and looking at him archly with a snooty smile,she asked,:'aap kaaa ...office nahi hai?'

Daya found delight in making her exasperated,:' hmmm woh to tha magar aap se achcha host ban ne ki chakkar me der ho gaya mera..'

A sudden laughter she couldn't resist,:'mujhe pata nahi tha ki...aap...mere sath...competition kar rahe hain...' she assuaged the laughter with much effort ,:'agar pata hota...to...aap ko jeetne me madad kar sakti thi..'

Daya's eyebrows furrowed in a mixture of amusement and curiosity as he inquired,:'woh kaise?'

confidence oozed from her voice as she replied back with a little brashness,:'aap ke khana me zada mirchi dalke...'

Though she had divulged her thought in a flaunting way with her sole yearn to see his confused face but Daya found it immensely comical and with a broad grin he hastened,:'yaad rakhna parega ye baat...aaj shaam ke liye...'

Cold water was as if thrown into Niyati's savoury moments as the thought kept tickling at the back of her mind that he would then perhaps skip visiting her nani..A repentance blended with scare descended upon her as she asked in puckered brow,hiding her apprehension though with a tinge of dogmatic arrogance,:'aap nahi arahe hain shaam ko?'

Daya lingered the grin for some moments until the throbbing impatience of the atmosphere grew,:'aap thora sa intezar kijiye...main office jane ke waqt aap ko chhor ke aaunga...' he turned back and disappeared while Niyati gazed at his way covetously...


	9. Chapter 9

Dusk was approaching slowly as the sun dipped into the sea...The old lady was lying on her couch denying to lie in bed..Since the morning she had been becoming increasingly cantankerous..Her grand-daughter's mercurial behaviour was difficult to be dealt with specially coming at this age when impatience frequently nudged one..She kept grumbling inside her with visible petulance about Niyati's sudden departure from the home and then returning back almost in the noon...But astonishingly Niyati kept ignoring her reprimands with sporadic smiles and her blase attitude was what she disliked most and a fiery anger flamed inside her...

:'niniiiiii' she yelled snappily..

After a full minute of silence, Niyati entered smilingly with a trolly containing tea and buscuits making her grandmother astounded..

:'aaj itna jaldi chay?' she still asked a little testily..

Niyati sat opposite facing her nani and in between serving her tea she replied imperturbably,:'tumhe hi to pasand hai jaldi chay peena...' her squinted eyes once skimmed over the choleric feature of the old lady and then she lowered her eyes further concentrating on pouring tea into the cups...

A faint smile appeared at the face of the old lady as she indeed was pleased by the action of Niyati but she still wanted to maintain grouchy mood to punish her grand-daughter..:'mere pasand na pasand ka parwa kaha hai tujhe?' she made a sullen face deliberately to make her annoyed but Niyati was abnormally calm and...now her glance struck at her face which suddenly seemed animated...Niyati raised tea-full cup towards her nani stating in unruffled gesture,:'hai na...'

The old lady waited though still maintaining a sullen face but Niyati served her buscuits with an intriguing smile...

The lady smiled inside herself as the vivacity of her granddaughter delighted her but she said testily,:'mera tape la de mujhe...akele baithe baithe thak gayi hun...'

Niyati's lips pressed to form a bright smile and she temporized,:'tape? us se kya karoge?'

The lady turning her face aside to show anger,answered curtly,:'karna kya hai? gana hi sun ke reh jaungi...'

Niyati stared at her with infinite tenderness for some seconds before heaving a long sigh and then dug her hand in her trouser pocket..:'is se sun lo gana...' A cell phone she raised towards her nani...The lady looked at her with immense astonishment while Niyati assured her with the parlance of her eyes adding more,:'tumhara sare favourite gane ...is me bhar diya...Lo...'

A child-like grin brightened the face of the old lady though at the very next moment she expressed her worry, :'tujhe kitni bar kaha ke ye sab istemal karna mujhe ata nahi...mujhe nahi ata hai phone bone karna...' feigned petulance returned back into her face...

:'abhi ajayega,' replied Niyati imperturbably,:'aur phir tumhe phone karna nahi hoga...bas gana hi sun lo...' she sipped a little tea while the lady asked eagerly,:'ghazal bhar diya na?'

An affectionate smile crossed Niyati's face and she started playing song pressing a button...

Tere ane ki jab khabar mehke...tere khushboo se sara ghar mehke...Tere ane ki jab khabar mehke...tere khushboo se sara ghar mehke...

Faint complacency touched her shy smile as some glimpses of the morning started coming before her eyes...

Shaam mehke tere tasawwur se...

shaam mehke tere tasawwur se...

shaam ke baad phir shahr mehke

shaam ke baad phir shahr mehke...

Her eyes started gleaming without her knowledge remembering the journey of her with the man from his residence to her when he had come to drop her some hours back...A silly smile she couldn't restrain recalling her meaningless perplexity in grasping his shoulder for support..It was scary but at the same time adventurous to travel in bike and she was pleased with herself as she managed it without clasping the man...His shirt was puffing like a balloon as the breeze blew fast...and ...that intoxicating fragrance...Had he applied any after shave lotion?

Tere ane ki jab khabar mehke...tere khushboo se sara ghar mehke...

The corner of her lips curled seeing such mystical smile over her granddaughter's face though she ventured to ask very normally,:'kis ko yaad karke hans rahi hai Nini? kya tujhe kisi ka ane ka khushboo araha hai? mujhe to nahi mil raha hai ab tak!'

Niyati felt erratic beats of her heart though she looked at her nani unflinchingly trying to behave normally,:'nani tum bhi!' little crimson colour of shyness dyed her cheeks before she resumed in a frolicsome gesture,:' bahar lawn me ja ke baithoge?'

The lady concurred immediately as inside her heart she formed a pleasant anticipation that she didn't wish to share with her granddaughter at that very moment...

Rat bhar sochta raha tujh ko...

Rat bhar sochta raha tujh ko...

zahno dil mere rat bhar mehke

zahno dil mere rat bhar mehke...

Niyati's eyes clouded with dim fervour as she clasped the old lady from behind on the way to lawn...It seemed to her as if someone started tickling her mischievously relentlessly and she had lost even a crust of power to stop it...Her logical mind tried to come back floundering within a ocean of surging emotions reprimanding her,:'how can you connect him with everything you stupid silly girl!' She murmured inside, :'I don't have to connect anything with him...but it seems as if everything is connected with him...'

:'kya barbara rahi hai Nini?'

-kuchh nahi nani...yaha baitho...' she whipped her unbridled self to be composed...

Tere ane ki jab khabar mehke...tere khushboo se sara ghar mehke...

:'are magar chay to thanda ho jayega na?' asked the lady trying to figure out the reason of her granddaughter's secretive delight...

:'koi baat nahi nani...phir se banake laungi main...' giggled Niyati a little unreasonably perhaps to screen her thudding heartbeats...

:'itna energy achanak kaha se agaya tujh me haa?' nani teased her with a wry smile...

Niyati with a half smirk shook her head in her effort to dismiss the words of her nani...

Yaad aye to dil munawar ho...

yaad aye to dil munawar ho...

deed ho jaye to nazar mehke...

deed ho jaye to nazar mehke...

A chuckle of bliss appeared on Niyati's face and something kept trembling inside her as the man entered from the tiny grill gate of the garden pasting an ingenuous smile over his face...An ash coloured jeans with lemon yellow full sleeve t shirt blending with his charm made his appearance not only attractive but invigorating too...Niyati's face unconsciously broadened with a grin...eyes misted up with fervour...lips quivered...

When Daya finally reached beside their tea table the old lady exclaimed in joy,:'aya hai tu? abhi yaad aya is buddhi ka?'

Daya stooped down to have a loose hug with the lady still lingering the precious smile over his face while the lady kept prattling on,:'are Niniii...baithne to de Daya ko...'

Niyati as if woke up from a heavenly dream and she was quick enough to erase the lines of embarrassment from her face decking it with a measured courteous smile,:'baithiye please...' She offered him a seat with an ostensibly poised face...Some seconds of awful silence prevailed before Niyati chose to break it with a cynical smile,:'phir? kya sochke humara ghar ka rah yaad agaya aap ko?' Afer throwing the question,she kept looking at her glossy nails though quite flippantly...A faint chuckle crossed Daya's face as he dawdled in answering her...Niyati felt thumping of her heart as she perceived that by throwing that question to him she had catapulted herself in a cloud of confusion...Would he be discreet? Would he be prudent not to reveal before nani that...

:'sach kahu to...' Daya paused glancing at Niyati archly with a cryptic smile,before divulging,:'nani ka bohut hi zada yaad araha tha...waise bhi...kal promise karke bhi aa nahi paya tha...Aaj to ana bohut jaroori tha...' his words were wrapped in unpretentious innocence with a tint of mischief...A tempting smile appeared on Niyati's face before she evaded her eyes...

:'haa beta...Kal mann me bada ummeed tha...ke tu ayega,' the old lady revealed it defenselessly like a child and kept saying,:'kal jab tu na aya to socha ke ummeed karna hi chhor dungi...'

:'naniii,' Niyati tried to reprimand her nani with reproving glance..

:'kyu? tu bhi to kal kitni mayus thi...abhi mujhe kyu chup kara rahi hai?' the lady countered promptly..

Niyati jolted inside with something akin to scare while the lady kept scolding her,:' Daya ko chay na peelayegi kya?Tu to keh rahi thi phir se chay banake layegi?ooooo...kya tujhe pata tha Daya ayega?' Niyati's face turned purple in apprehension and before she could make herself composed to reply back Daya plunged eagerly,:'nnahi nani...mmere sath to...doctor ...I mean...Niyati ka koi contact hi na huya...' his face became more innocent in his effort to marshall a complete lie,:'hai na ..Nniyati?'

Niyati instead of beefing up Daya's words, kept gazing at his flummoxed face with bemused stupefaction..

:'aaur phir...mmujhe to...' he flung his hands perhaps to make his words more plausible,:'khud hi pata nahi tha...ki...mmain aaj...aa paunga...yya nnahi...' he flashed a fatuous smile at the end making every possible effort to persuade the old lady...

An inscrutable smile peeped through the corner of her lips when the lady finally nodded sending Daya at the peak of incredulity, :'phir to meri Nini anjane me hi itna sundar ghazal chalayi hai..kyu Nini?'

Niyati's face hardened in her desperate effort to conceal the storm inside her heart..Sheer astonishment seeped through Daya's face as he looked at Niyati squarely..Niyati sprang up abruptly,spluttering feebly,:'main chay lati hun...aap baithiye..'

A smile of sagacity mingled with amazement waved through his lips before his glance fell upon the old lady as she grizzled pretentiously to punish him,:' is budhi ko kyu yaad ayega? abhi to zindegi rangeen hai tera...Is liye to nani ko aaunga bolke bhi na aya...' Deep contrition crossed his face as he jabbered an abject apology,:'maaf kar dijiye nanijee...woh...kabhi kabhi aisa bhi kaam ajate hai ki...' he stopped as he started hating himself for making such a false excuse and be resolute at that moment in keeping every promise specially where an old lonely woman was involved in it..

Smile slowly brightened the face of the old lady when she melted seeing the rueful repentance over Daya's face and she patted his cheeks with her gnarled fingers affectionately while Daya lowering his face indulged himself in receiving motherly affection...

:'Nini jhagra kiya tha na?' asked the lady making her face mischievous...

:'nahi nanijee...' replied he promptly with a coy smile...

The face of the lady became reflective in a moment as she kept speaking,:'Nini ki jhagra se use galat maat samajhna beta...' she paused looking at some distant object and resumed,:'jiski sar ki upar se...bas bees saal me achanak ma baap ka chhaya kho jaye...' she paused and panted with grief,:' us bechari ko...pure duniya pe hi gussa ane lagta hai...' her eyes moistened in a moment and she daubbed her eyes...Daya was looking at her with a dolorous expression ..

:'duniya ki har aadmi me use fareb dikhti hain aur aapne aap ko bachane ke liye...aisa jhagrelu ban ne ki koshish karti hai...' she added further with a little tremor in her voice...The weight of her frail hand was perceived by Daya as she said in pleading gesture,:'use galat na samajhna beta...'

Daya felt as if he had been thrown into a predicament where he wouldn't be able to resort to silence any more...

Grasping her hand he ventured irresolutely, :'ggalat samajhne ka ...koi...sawal hi...paida nahi hota hai nani...' he floundered as if within the dark ocean to find some word to pacify the old lady and came back,:'niyati...chahe gussa ho...ya...khush ho...kuchh bhi chhupa nahi sakti hain...' he felt a little embarrassed in defining Niyati's feature though,:'aise insan ko...kya...galat samajhna hai?'

Niyati was at the threshold holding a flusk full of tea and a cup in her other hand but she slowered her pace listening to her name from his lips...A strong wave as if flowed inside her body making her standstill...What the man was talking about?

:'bohut jhagarte hai na Nini tujh se?' asked the old lady having been a little relieved by his words

Daya made no reply but flashed a squirm smile making the old lady delighted...

Niyati felt as if she was pursued by a constant scare about the conversation of the two as it sprang up suddenly inside her that her nani would be able to ask Daya something that would only perplex and discomfit him...

:'kya conspiracy ho raha hai mere khilaf?' she said moving towards them trying to maintain a confident and unruffled gesture...The old lady grasped the opportunity to veer the discussion from a sombre one and stated with a child like vivacity,:' plan chal raha tha...beach me jane kaa...' Daya gazed at the revived smile of the lady with amazement while Niyati gave her gentle admonishment,:'nanniiiii!' she sat and poured the steamy tea from the flusk for Daya saying,:'mana kiya na main? kyu bar bar bachcho jaise zid karne lag jate ho?' The ebullient smile dwindled away from nani's face when she protested feebly,:'chal to sakti hun main ...' she paused and then came back uttering the rest,:'abhi bhi...'

Niyati raised the cup towards Daya and a plateful of crunchy biscuits with a decorous smile and thereafter said,:' zid na karo nani...phir waha pe ja ke tumhara tabyat kharab lagega to?'

For some seconds the old lady remained silent before coming back with a stout reasoning,:'Tu hai na? Tu rehte huye tabyat kharab hone ka naam pe kyu darru?' She glanced at Daya seeking his implied support...

Niyati heaved a long sigh perhaps with tiredness and her eyes rolled a little without her knowledge when she was finally going to reamrk then only Daya shrugged with a humorous gesture expressing his implied support to nani's words...Niyati with goggled eyes and parted lips stared at him,:'aaap bhi?' she clipped with staggered expression over her face and added,:'kaha aap nani ko manayenge...us ko mana karenge ...aur...' she flung her hands in a mixture of anger and disbelief before putting more,:'aap do milke karte rahiye mujhe pareshan aise...' reddish hue of displeasure touched her cheeks..

:'thik hai...' chimmed in the old lady,:'maan leti hun ki main tujhe pareshan karti hun...' she confessed hurriedly and her eyes were gleaming with mischeif to finish,:'magar Daya kaise pareshan kiya tujhe haa? zara bata to mujhe...'

Niyati felt a sudden jerk inside her and felt that uprush of shyness was trying to descend upon her which she couldn't resist...How could she now manage to maintain a sombre & normal face? How would be able to show a careless nonchalance conveying the message that she hadn't been mortified by his absence...

Daya though in between two sip of tea, clarified it with a frank laugh,:'nanijee aap bhi...waise hi Nniyati pareshan hain...aur aap...' he paused and his glance fell at her as he ventured,:'waiseee...'

Niyati's frizzy hair screened her face as she cowered looking at the small round table with a visibly annoyed face...

Daya mustered his thoughts before revealing, :'waisee...hum beach me ...ekbar ja to sakte hain...'

Niyati looked at him sharply,while Daya hastened with a little frightened gesture, :'agar...agar...aap ka koi aitraaz na ho to...'

Niyati forcefully evaded her glance indicating her displeasure while Daya persisted trying to persuade her,:'nanijee ka itna mann hai ...' he was interposed as Niyati fumed in rage,:'aur un ka mann ka ichchha puri karne ke liye agar koi nuksan pauche to? do din pehle girke sar phata liya...stiches huya hai...abhi un ka mann ka sun na zada jaroori hai ya unko mera baat maan na?'

Daya's face turned initially like a school child upon whom teacher's unrelenting reprimand showered and when she finished serene smile appeared at his lips...Though Niyati felt as if her heart would stop beating any moment as the child like fright outpoured through his face...Her glance locked with his face unknowingly with a captivating effect until he said concurring with her,:'aap ki baat bhi sahi hai...' he shrugged again forcing a smile, :'kaffi practical bhi hai...' he elongated the smile for few seconds before venturing to swerve the topic away,:'to nanijee...kuchh din aap ko...bas gana sun ke hi guzara karna hai...waisee...' his glance once fell archly at Niyati before he divulged,:'aap ko shayad...ghazal bada pasand hai...'

Niyati looked at him with slight astonishment while Daya asked with a glint of mischief in his eyes,:'Niyati aap ko daat nahi lagati hai? aise nahi kehti hai ke...kya anab shanab sun rahe ho?'

Sheer stupefaction reflected through the face of the old lady as she replied astoundingly,:'haaa...lagaya to karti thi bohut saal pehle...magar abhi to dekhti hun ki...' she was interposed as Niyati gave her mild reproof once again and this time with a petulant face,:'naniiii!'

The old lady with a wry smile resumed, without paying much heed to her granddaughter's reproving glance, :'abhi to dekhti hun ghazal hi ghazal sunti rehti hai...pata nahi...' she added in a mincing voice,:' shayad...koi gehra raaz hoga is ki ghazal sun ne ke peechhe...'

Daya looked at her with a staggering confounded smile while Niyati countered in thick voice defending herself,:' kya aise hi anab shanab baatein karke aap log is shaam ko barbaad karenge?' though she was desperate to maintain a grim feature but it was appearing almost impossible to her as it seemed as if the flowing blood was tripling and dancing with increased force within her body...A frisson of fright blending with pleasure pain and anger waving through her whole body relentlessly making her perplexed and discomfited...

:'is se to achcha tha...' she resurrected with a comparatively low voice, looking hazily at some unknown object,:' beach pe ja ke baithna...'

:'chal Daya...' said nani promptly, :'beach pe ja ke humara anab shanab baatein sun ne se...chhutkara milega ise...' the old lady said it with feigned repentance though her gleaming eyes couldn't conceal the mischief inside her...

:'haa..' Daya nodded in concurrence, :'abhi kaise beach pe jane se mana kar sakta hun?' he said it in a way as if he hated the idea of visiting beach...

A mild smile of affection rippled in Niyati's lips as she swore beneath her breath, :'you would never know Daya...why I am daring to take nani into the beach...'

:'waise...' Daya's comical smile ebbed away as he asked quite practically, :'aap ke pas koi wheel chair hai?'

Niyati nodded saying,:'haaa...magar nani use nahi karna chahte hain us ko...'

Daya looked at the old lady wih a reproving glance though a tinge of caring smile fastened over his face...

...

...

Daya and Niyati reached at the beach bringing nani though she was persuaded after a long session to sit on the wheel chair instead of going there by walk...

Cool onshore breeze was fanning their faces wringing their weariness out from their hearts and bodies...

Not many had come to behold at the waving orange sea as it was almost a recluse beach...With sluggish steps as they moved towards the sea,it seemed to Niyati that she would have been deprived of getting such a serene atmosphere if persisting with her decision not to come...Her glance slowly turned to the man who was pushing the wheel chair with a placid smile over his face...His hair buffeted and perhaps it was the salty air that made his face more charming than ever...The opalescent shadow reflected over his face impelling Niyati to gaze at him with rapturous eyes...A rhythmic tingling she perceived within herself as an effect of the incessant lullaby of the waves...She trembled feeling that as if copious caresses had been showered upon her sending her in a frenzied state where she was incoherent and...struggling to manage her unbridled emotion...

Her well shaped nails hurt her palm as she clenched her fists burying her straying fantasy there...She was awakened and simultaneously felt a frisson of excitement went passed her spine getting the voice of Daya,:'nahi Nani...zid nahi...' he admonished with his gentle care,:'chaliye hum us rock ke pas jake baithe...' he added further and then hunched towards the old lady as she was perhaps getting stubborn for something...

A silent inquiry was born in her eyes and persisted until Daya said something inaudible...It was the sound of the waves that was erasing his voice and she yearned to reprimand the waves at that moment for making his words inaudible...It was not only fervent...but also outlandish for a woman who once considered herself as a practical and logical one...but...A faint shy smile touched her lips failing miserably in defining and explaining the reasons of her own stupidity...

She could advance towards him to get in close propinquity but every time she trembled with a maddening fright-fright for doing a blunder, fright for committing such a mistake that could lower her dignity...

Daya though astounded to experience such a cold apathy of Niyati specially when she had the responsibility of an old lady, he managed to hide his thoughts well and coming a little closer he divulged further with a comparatively louder voice, :'nani aapne hatho se chair ko chalana chahte hain...'

Waves of tingling pleasure started flowing inside her as he, perhaps for the first time came so closer even if it was just to make her understood about the situation...

Her gaze slowly flew to him, tantalizingly as she remained silent..

It was a brief yet intense moment when Daya stared at her with expectancy but she clammed up, holding her breath and locking her eyes with his...But the moment broke as Daya in a bustle advanced towards the moving wheel chair to handle the whimsical childish crave of the old lady...

Niyati returned back into the harsh reality and with a faded smirk she accepted it and advanced towards them...


	10. Chapter 10

Coming beside the rock Daya went ahead of the wheel chair and kneeling before it,stated with genial scold ,:'abhi nanijee utar ke rock pe baithna parega...'

The sound of the waves was comparatively low there and thus every words were getting audible,:'magar mujhe to maja araha hai...' replied the old lady with a child-like ebullience...

Daya, glancing at Niyati quite helplessly sought her interference there but Niyati was an avid viewer there rather making herself embroiled in that situation though sending Daya at the peak of perplexity..She looked at the whole picture with starry enigmatic eyes sinking in deep cogitation until Daya scooped the old lady up into his arms before placing her on a comfortable rock to sit...

:'baithiye yaha pe abhi...' he said further giving her an affectionate reprimand...

:'arey kyu? mujhe to bohut maja araha tha...sagar ki paani me pair ka patta dubona tha...' she confessed making her face annoyed..

:'aur koi bada lehre ajaye to? ' Daya was prompt as tenderness radiated through his eyes...

Niyati's smirk converted into a mild yet meaningful smile before she averted her glance from them and settled it over the vast expanse of the sea...

An indescribable delight making her paralysed to that extent where she could no more resist herself in indulging fertile fantasy...Her eyes closed partially for the force of the cool breeze...A provocative smile hovered at her face as she recalled the line of a song and hummed it beneath her breath-'hawa sun hawa...use chhoo ke aaa...use chhoo ke aaa..ja zara...'

:'mere jawani me...tera nanajee ke sath mil ke subah ka suraj ugna...aur shaam ka dub jana...dekha karte the hum...' the old lady turned reminiscent,:'tab bhi...tera nanaji...' she sniffed perhaps feeling an aching pain,:'mujhe pair dubona nahi dete the...' she paused a little before coming back,:'un ka bhi bada darr tha mujhe leke...' A gentle crimson colour of placidity slowly spread over his face as he concentrated on her words intently...

:'ke mera kuchh na ho jaye...koi bada lehre se...mera koi nuksaan na pauche...' the lady kept saying almost in a stupor awakening Niyati's savaged emotion...She glanced at Daya with a mixture of fervour fright and incredulity...

A placid smile rippled in his face as he looked at Niyati to cherish the past memories of the old lady with her but instead he noticed a rare parlance of her eyes-perhaps it could be named reverence? 'Is it?' Daya was befuddled and perceived that an innate coyness was descending upon him being under the mystical glance of the young lady...

Niyati kept looking at him with a penetrating glance as Daya gazed now at the sea stoically...His carelessness about himself smote her as it seemed enigmatical to her how could such paradoxical characteristics belonged to one person? He was over caring about everyone around him and when the question rose of taking good care of oneself, an eccentric apathy cloaked him...The emotion almost aching within her as she felt that she hadn't possessed the actual right to take care of the man even if he was taking good care of her grandmother...

His well shaped feet were dipping in sea water as the sea advanced towards them...but...where did his mind lie? What was he ruminating so deeply? Had he felt lonely ever? Had he felt ever the need of someone's presence in his barren life? he seemed to be so destitute of romantic ardour ...

Niyati's straggling thoughts had been cudgeled as she was startled by the abruptness in which Daya stated,:'paani age bar raha hai...Aap wheel chair ko leke peechhe aaiye..main nani ko leke ata hun...'He scooped nani out with quick movements before wading back to whisk away from the raising water...Niyati was struggling with the wheel chair as the current of the waves making it difficult to snatch something at the opposite direction against the power of the waves...

Reaching at a distance he laid nani over a rock,:'comfortable hai na?' asked he,quickly once skimming his eyes over Niyati's movement..

:'haa beta...' replied the old lady with astonished gratitude...

:'aap baithe rahiye...hum wheel chair leke ate hain..' stated Daya as humbly possible within haste and then left the lady...

As his feature started getting reduced in size,the old lady flashed a contend smile murmuring without any hesitation,:'phir bhi na kahega...ki..Niyati ko madad karke ata hun...'she paused as her eyes moistened and a started raditaing a rare affection,:'pagal ladka...'she resumed and concluded peacefully..

Daya took the possession of the wheel chair from Niyati,saying solicitously,:'aap nani ke pas chale jaiye...'

:'kyu?'Niyati asked laconically as usual making him enough discomfited..

Daya flashed a fleeting smile before remarking in low voice,:'har baat me sawal karna...aap ki adaat hai..'

:'what?'Niyati asked further not being able to listen to him though this time a little asperity was reflecting over her face...

Daya shook his head with a squirm smile and remained silent..

Niyati's eyes roved through his moving eyelids and straggling hair as he kept wading ahead with the chair...The smile still lingering over his face as her eyes finally settled on his succulent lips and well shaped greenish chin...A queer expectancy was flaming inside her restive eyes till he commented,:'nani...kahi zada nostalgic to na ho gaye? I mean...'his eyes glowed with concern,:'ab tak to woh...khush lag rahe the...magar...'he paused with a grim apprehension while Niyati's face shadowed and contracted..A queer jealousy flowed through her whole body maddening and mocking the senses of her...Her breath had risen and she felt an ache as an effect of her effort she put to repress her quickened breath...Her eyes shone with rare rebellion as she answered back with a scoff,:'nostalgia achcha hota hai Inspector...'

Daya glanced at her with an astounding look as she called him suddenly 'inspector' while Niyati continued radiating derision through her mocking eyes adding more,:'magar woh samajh ne ke liye jis ka jaroorat hota hai...' she paused and waited for locking her eyes with him and when finally it befell she pressed her lips as usual giving an overweening impression and with a priggish smile remarked,:'woh aap ke pas hai nahi...'she winced pretentiously whispering,:'so sad...'Her one sided battle was finished for the time being, as she yearned to stab the man beside her with her venomous words...Yes..She possessed some weapons to hit back some vile creatures who...An abrupt shudder she felt just when she was preening the flavour of a win...but...whom did she hit back? Was he her opponent? had he hurt her deliberately or ...or...? beads of sweat coming over her forehead...

or...had he expressed his generous concern for her old grandmother? How had he able to know that when he expressed his concern for someone, a vile jealousy she couldn't resist to flow in her every vein? How could he perceive that every tint of herself was yearning frantically for having his gentle care? But...how could he be living his life wrapping himself in such drabness? Hadn't he felt anything for anyone? Had he ever felt how doctor niyati...' her frenzied thoughts abruptly stopped as she felt a shame was descending upon her...for her abrasive behaviour with the man who had been unstintingly generous towards them...

Profound sorrow of contrition struck her face and soon her system converted it as anger..

Daya decided to maintain silence as it was not inconceivable to him that Niyati wasn't in her best mood and even a normal word could reach to her as 'vicious'...

Niyati felt a strong guilt swirling inside her as she had been venturing to look at him...A slight tremor of fervour continued in her ribs...The cool breeze of the sea even failed to soothe the dried thirst inside her that was threatening fiercely...

A sigh of relief couldn't be suppressed as finally they reached beside the rock where the old lady was sitting with a delighted face..

:'us taraf chal na...woh us taraf...'she stated and indicated towards a coconut grove far from the rock...

:'nanii..'Niyati scolded her with an admonitory glance and Daya with a tender smile suggested,:"aaj wapas chalte hain nanijee...andhera bhi barh raha hai aur...'he paused and looked once at Niyati's seeming to be impassive face before returning back with an abashed smile,:'hum thak bhi to gaye hain..hai na?'

The old lady was quick to grimace in displeasure and with a grunt she said,:'huh..itne me hi kaise thak gaye sab haa?' she paused and a very feeble yet wry smile appeared at the corner of her lips before she divulged,:'tera nanaji to burhape me bhi itna jaldi na thakte the...Tu ajkal ka jawan ladka hoke kaise thak gaya?'she was sage enough to make her face inquisitive with an exasperated gesture making Niyati riled with visible annoyance...Her nose flared;eyes rolled as she snorted with irritation watching the meaningless comparison between her grandfather and ...Daya..

Daya on the other hand replied back with a poised smile & frank confession,:'kya kare nanijee...Hum...ajkal ke log un ke tarha thore itne tandurusth hain...'

The old lady rumpled his unruly hair before gazing at him with indulgent chuckle,saying,:'bada pyara dil hain tera...'

Niyati felt as if rushing wave of ecstasy was surging her and she felt terribly weak against her idiocy..what she heard just now? She hadn't even an iota of sensitivity to discern how egoless the man had been! He had the courage to admit the truth ...so simply yet so incredibly! He accepted the most unequal and unfair comparison her nani made with so much forthrightness and optimism and yet..he was ...beaming with an unruffled smile..!

passion suddenly started fluttering within her heart and reflected through her shining eyes those were roving over the activities of the man making her bewildered and bereft of consciousness about what was going around her...

'doctor' Daya's voice shoving upon her heart like a cool dashing gale, awakened her as she noticed that he was ready to return back with nani sitting in wheel chair..

:'yess..' said she in deliberate emphasis to get rid off the embarrassment and pressed her lips forming a confident gesture...

:'tera nanaji rehte...to mujhe tana dete rehte..' revealed the old lady in a humorous tone of voice,:'ke...tumhara to bohut maja haa? bina mehnat ke samundar dekhne ja rahe ho..wapas arahe ho...' she kept imagining and pronouncing the words her husband might say if he had been alive..

Daya's face accidentally turned towards Niyati and as their eyes met Daya saw a beaming chuckle in the corner of her lips..Daya too chuckled back and before he could say something Niyati turned her face off...

They strolled slowly towards the main road while the old lady kept nattering on,:'aur main bhi kehti ...ki kyu? kyu na karungi aram main? mere bachche log mera seva karenge to main kyu na rahu maje se? achcha ...achchha...' her mincing voice impelled Niyati to laugh even for just a short while before she could repressing it while Daya too relished it with an ingenuous grin over his face...

:'achchaa...tumhe kya laga tha ki main hamesha zindegi bhar tumhara rasoi me reh jaungi ha?' the childish row the old lady had started with her late husband was delightful for Niyati & Daya though the old lady suggested purposefully thereafter,:'dekh Nini..pyar karne ki galti maat karna..'her lips curled in amusement as she continued,:'ye aadmi log ye jante hain...ki aurat ekbar pyar kare...to jaan de dete hain...'

The ebullient smile slowly dwindled away from Niyati's face as she felt an irregular pounding of her heart...

:"chahe kitna hi mannmani karte rahe woh log...aurat us se door na reh sakte hain...chahe kitna bhi taqleef ho use..kitna bhi dukh ho...'

A demure smile spread over the face of Daya as he kept listening with humour...

:'aurat ka pyar ka gana to aisa hai ki...'

Daya's face turned a little reflective as the old lady started singing...:'jo wada kiya woh...nibhana parega ...nibhana parega...'

Niyati's eyes flicked away towards the face of Daya which appeared a little hardened for a fraction of second...What he had been cogitating about? Had he been thinking about his...A knotted lump rose in her throat...

:'kyu Daya?'asked the old lady,:'maine sahi kaha na?' her eyes twinkled in the faint darkness of the early evening..

Daya's face decked with priceless grin while Niyati's eyes brimmed with tenderness and passion gazing at his captivating face...

:'jis ne pyar kiya woh to phans gaya..' remarked the old lady jestfully stretching herself at the peak of the humour...

:'ye baat to aap ne sahi kaha nanijee..' replied Daya with a tint of shyness sending Niyati in a muzzled state without his knowledge..Her face unconsciously screwed up with an odd nervousness and brows puckered together...Her dried lips parted as she was almost teetering on the brink of shooting a curious querry to him but...she kept a curb upon her proclivity as his words floated to her mind making her stopped..

"har baat me sawal poochhna aap ka aadat hai.."

A smirk came as she perceived that the man had learned to analyze her characteristics...A smile of discernment appeared over her face as she shook her head to subdue the bubbles of wild glee she had been feeling after photographing his grin by her restive keen eyes..But...how could he comment like that about...love? Had he ever fallen in love? Her heart throbbed fast treacherously impelling her to look at him with covert glance...

The hurly burly of the main road approached soon and they barely had the opportunity to speak anything until reaching at the gate...

:'Daya...tu aaj raat ka khana kha ke jana..' suggested the old lady demandingly while Daya's face in a reflex turned towards Niyati as a comical smile rippled through his lips..Niyati recalled the words of the morning and averted her glance with a visible disdain trying to screen her shyness...

:'nahi nanijee...' Daya fended off humbly,:'aaj to jana hai...' he added...

:'are aise kaise jana hai?' The old lady was getting stubborn like a child,:'tune suna Nini?'

Niyati dawdled in answering,:'hmmmm' sounded she crossing her hands...

:'"hmmm" kya? Daya ko ruk jane ke liye to kaha kar...' impatience was seeping through the voice of the old lady...

:'nahi nani...aaj rehne dijiye na...phir kabhi...' Daya tried further to avoid but his words were interrupted as Niyati revealed in somewhat an artificial tone of voice,:'suna na tumne nani...Daya ko mera khana pasand nahi hai...Us ka kehna hai ki main bohut zada hi mirchi dalti hun...' after finishing she kept chuckling with a sharpened smile of self complacency...The exuberance of victory shone in her eyes though it couldn't linger as she failed to faze Daya by her lie...The old lady by the mean time burst into a peal of laughter while Daya answered jestfully,:'dekhiye nanijee...aap ki natin ko bahana achcha ata hai...'

The old lady continued laughing while Niyati slipped hurriedly inside without any word...

The old lady hadn't skipped noticing that and she relished the fact considering it as her grand daughter's bashfulness...

:' thori der to baith ja mere pas,' the old lady was keen enough not letting him go,:'soona ghar me ja ke kya tujhe achcha lagega...haa?' she remarked in between settling on couch from the wheel chair...:'kuchh der mere sath to baatein kar le...'

Daya stood riveted there like a blushing child while the old lady offered him a seat,:'baith yaha pe..'she peeped inside once before hunching towards him in hushed tone,:'tere sath milke...Nini ko sabak sikhana hai mujhe...' a cloak of mischievous twinkle pervaded her face while Daya was candid in his confession,raising his hands in a gesture of submission,:'maaf kar dijiye nanijee...ye to mujh se hoga nahi..'he grinned with vigour..

Niyati saw him saying so and chuckled silently,shyly but her brows furrowed as she wasn't being able to listen to the inaudible whisper of the two for about five minutes before both burst into vivacious laughter...Niyati's vision dimmed with fervour as her gratefulness yearned to ooze out through her eyes for the man who converted a dejected old woman into a cheerful one; who filled the atmosphere of her residence with an inexplicable gaiety...

Daya switched on the television and settled it in a music channel as per the old lady's order and then he sought permission,a little hesitantly,:'abhi ...main chalta hun nanijee...'

:'mauka milne se hi chala ayega...' she stated possessively,:'ye bol ke ja mujhe...'

:'jaroor aaunga nanijee...' replied he with visible coyness..

:'are Nini kaha chali gayi magar?' a litle asperity touched the voice of the old lady...

Daya further said a litle irresolutely,:'shayad busy hai...main baad me...contact kar lunga...'

The old lady's lips curled in amusement when she finally said,:'sabdhan ho ke jana beta...' she raised her one frail hand towards him and he too stooped down for getting her blessings...She patted his cheeks with gentle care before biding him goodbye...

Daya came out of Niyati's residence and though Niyati's mystical absence from the scene was astonishing for him but he didn't let it seep through his face and when he was about to start the bike, his eyes accidentally alighted on a loose paper that hung from the front seat...He straightened the paper and something had been written in care,:'Sorry...for my rude comments...You have unimpeachable sensitivity and please forgive me for my brashness...' A steady chuckle slowly brightened his face as he looked at the residence turning back his head...He then crammed it into his pocket and whisked away within a minute with his bike...

Niyati felt as if her body was electrified with a queer delight seeing the demure smile on Daya's face ..She smirked rolling her restive eyes which at last she could settle at the ceiling as she got revivified suddenly with an unknown emotion..A rippling bliss as if flowing inside her making her flummoxed in managing such tidal waves of emotion...But she endeavoured to analyze it whipping her heart...

Was it the reason that she had been able to confess her fault? Had she ever admit it so straight? Even if she allowed herself to confess, it was over her writing pad...but..how could she be able to do it, shattering every barrier of shame and the conceited vanity? A steady tranquility of content crossed her face as she closed her eyes with an almost inconceivable curl of her lips


	11. Chapter 11

Three long days elapsed; the days and nights of stifling breathless tenterhooks...An excruciating pang melding with a tinge of annoyance along with huffishness throbbed inside Niyati and getting burgeoned mercilessly as the moments were passing by...She tried in every possible way to get rid off that uncomfortable stabbing pain at the very centre of her bosom and her efforts included her staying every possible moments with her grandmother with a fretful apprehension that whenever she would get alone,her mind would revolve around the thought of that careless stoical man and her heart would compelled her to spew out her inexplicable pain...but...she even was scared to shed tears as it wasn't indiscernible that her old grandmother who had very recently turned jocose and humorous, would suspect her by her beady eyes...

Though she blubbered once while the tap water running with force during taking bath but came out with a semblance of a stout woman who wouldn't ever be touched by any silly mawkishness..But within herself she had been getting wounded with only one thought that how long she would indulge herself in self deceiving? How long she would wear the veneer of a person who hadn't been affected by his charismatic magnetism? She had been irrevocably fallen for him and ...that was such a truth which seemed immutable at that very moment..

Sprawling herself on the couch as languidly as possible she had fixed her eyes on the TV screen where a ghazal programme was running..The tattered pieces of the conversation between the host and the singer,though was reaching at her ears but inconceivably as she was absorbed with the thought of someone who not only had have the fascination of listening Ghazals but also had the talent to croon it melodiously... Though he shied away from flaunting his talents but she had once the opportunity to listen to a fragment of his croon when he in an official picnic tour,had been singing a ghazal,considering himself alone in a sequestered palm grove...

Mili hawayon me udne ki woh saza yaroooo

Mili hawayon me udne ki woh saza yarooo

Ke main zameen ke rishto se kat gaya yaaroooo

A cold wave of agony seized her chest recalling that tune and something stabbed her eyes smartingly...She put every effort to convert her pain into anger and as an effect her teeth were gritted and jaws bobbed up & down and she tossed away the teddy forcefully in a corner of the room that she clung to tightly...

The old lady though was astounded but at the same time an inconceivable fear attacked her,:'kya huya Nini? teddy ko kyu pheka?'

:'kuchh nahi...'a terse reply came from Niyati in thick voice...

The old lady was sage enough not to plagued her granddaughter with more questions as she perceived Niyati's annoyance by the thickness of her voice though it was dark to her still now why she turned so much petulant in between such a nice programme.

A ghazal started at the right moment perhaps to mitigate the tensed silence of the room...

Dhoop me niklo...ghatao me..nahakar dekho...

zindegi kya hai...kitaabo ko hathakar dekho...

The book Niyati just had picked up carelessly, fell from her hand with a thud making the old lady dubious...She glanced at her grand daughter with squinted eyes and noticed her hurried movements for screening the bafflement over her face...She kept looking at her Nani archly until the song dominated the situation...

woh sitara hai chamak ne do yuhi akho me

kya zaroori hai use jism banakar dekho...

Amazement siphoned the blood from her face as every tinge of the song, whether it was words or tune...as if impelled her to sink deep into his thought...It was as if a dashing gale taking her forcefully towards the lane where he resided and having lost even the crust of power to fend off she was rushing headlong towards a hazardous consequence..

pattharo me bhi zuba hoti hai dil hote hai

apne ghar ke daro deewar sajakar dekho...

She looked up, disoriented and perplexed...Had he taken umbrage at her silly words she had spoken out of huff? But...hadn't she apologized for her impudence? Hadn't she repented for her cruel and insensitive remarks she made in sheer indiscretion? Had he forgiven her? One couldn't force him to look at the matter leniently...could one? If he wished not to forgive her, then...after all she couldn't bawl at him...It was his wish upon which ...' her thoughts were cudgeled and she ventured to dismiss everything with a smirk ...but within a minute it struck her that the tragedy of the spoken words was that it couldn't be retracted back...

phasla nazro ka dhoka bhi to ho sakta hai

woh mile ya na mile hath badakar dekho...

Her brows creased in surprise...Till then she was in an impassioned state considering that perhaps the man himself was singing the song to elevate her knowledge; to sharpen her dull sensitivity; to knock at the door of her heart by his geniality and unfathomable eloquence...Never once it seemed that it was she who had been connected the song with him...but...what had been happening with her? Had she been turning moron? She had been floated far away from the reality and...A flicker of hope abruptly made her a little animated...Her spirit suddenly started soaring high...Hope for what? Her brain was too bemused and absorbed that for some minute it couldn't analyze anything and when finally it was possible, a faint smile of bashfulness couldn't be restrained back...If the words of this ghazal turned true...then perhaps she would be a changed woman-a woman with much more sensitivity and vigour...but would she get the opportunity? How could she...raise...her hand...towards...him...?

She coiled herself in her desperate effort to conceal the dyed crimson colour of uprushing shyness...

The song ceased but the resonance was there, throbbing deep inside her heart making the flame sky high silently...The restiveness within was beyond human endurance...

The cell phone trilled which had been placed over the table...Daya was calling her grandmother...Her palm trembled with the yearn to receive it but...she managed to whip herself finally, drawling in dejected tone,:'nani...tumhara phone...'

The old lady was astounded and exclaimed,:'mera phone? kis ko pata hai mera number? nahi baba tu hi utha le..mujhe nahi ata hai phone bone karna...'

Niyati's breath had risen as her heart was pounding like insane but she still maintained her indifference,:'Daya tum ko phone kar raha hai...tum hi uthao na...' a little peevishness couldn't be hidden as her voice betrayed her...

:'Daya ka phone?' the old lady was delighted but slowly her beaming smile turned into a comical one and she didn't delay to suggest,:' mujhe nahi ata hai...abhi to tu hi utha le...phir main baat karungi...'

Niyati hastened in pressing the green button even when the words of her grandmother hadn't finished and the old lady's lips curled in amusement; eyes misted with mischief...

:'hello...' she maintained a sham image of indifference...

:'doctor...' Daya approached,a little hesitantly...

:'kya?' huffishness couldn't be restrained...

:'woh...' he still was irresolute, finding out quickly that her mood wasn't favourable...:'nanijee achche hain na?'

:'haa...' her voice bordered to rudeness as she replied laconically

There was complete silence of some seconds, before Daya with a little cough revealed,:'socha tha ...aaj nanijee se ekbar mil lunga...magar...' he paused and maintained silence until Niyati rapped out with an irksome gesture,:'magar what?' venom of anger started flowing inside her and without her knowledge eyes brimmed over with tears...

:'magar...aaj nahi aa paunga...is liye...' penitence was seeping through his voice...

:'ohh...it's fine...no problem Mr Daya...' snapped Niyati,:'we can spend good times without you...' it was sudden when the tears started coursing down her cheeks...:'no problem,' she repeated though this time her voice shook with vehemence of emotion and she pressed the red button quickly and almost slung the cell away at the cushion...

:'kya huya Nini?'the old lady asked though it was as clear as the pellucid water to her that a tumultuous disturbance was tearing her apart and before she could ask anymore, Niyati left the room in haste and closed the door of her room..

The old lady with much struggle dragged herself to her door and banged on it for sometime but relinquished it having been tired and dejected...

Niyati sobbed her heart out clinging to her pillow until her numbed brain awakened suggesting it was nothing more than a tomfoolery of crying like a child for something which ...perhaps...she wouldn't get ever...Her drenched face glistened in the faint light of the dusk..As she tiptoed beside the window, breeze gently fluffed her hair as if consoling her trying to lessen the pain she had been enduring..Perhaps she sunk deep into cogitation if she couldn't listen to a familiar sound-the sound she yearned for...But she decided not to move and fastened herself to the window with thumping heart...


	12. Chapter 12

Breathless silence prevailed for at least three minutes -silence that were so stifling that she desired to boom with noise but...finally her door banged again and she rushed there gasping for breath and as she opened it, it seemed she had opened the door of a fairytale land as her grandmother started crooning the birthday song along with the man who pasting a charming grin over his face forcing her to stare at him with fervent eyes...

"Happy birthday to my Niiiiniiiii...

Happy birthday to youuuuuuu...' her grandmother was too much zealous and finishing the song she burst into a peal of laughter before saying,:'tujhe kya laga tha haa? main bhul gayi hun? badmash ladki...' she put a light pat over her right cheek and continued,:'is umar me kya mujhe mera yaaddash ka pariksha dena padega? haa?'

Niyati was befuddled and for some time she failed to find any suitable reply as her eyes busied in scrutinizing each and every tinge of reaction Daya's face had been reflecting and having been a viewer of that she felt a surging flow inside her-a flow of delight with an eccentric tingling at the centre of her heart..

:'tujhe kya lagta hai? surprise dena bas tujh ko hi ata hai? haa? mujhe kuchh nahi ata hai?'the old lady's eyes twinkled with mischeif as she added,like a child,:'abhi main bhi kar diya na tujh ko surprise haa?' she continued laughing and Niyati's restive eyes noticed that how affection poured from Daya's gentle eyes for the old lady...Before she could utter anything the old lady hugged her granddaughter tight making her a little embarrassed infront of Daya..Daya though, sage enough to gauge her discomfort, averted his glance elsewhere...

:'meri gussa karnewali pyari gudiya..' the lady crooned for Niyati,:'chal abhi cake kat le..'

:'cake?' she objected feebly...

:'haa cake,' answered the old lady, :'Daya laya hai...arey Daya...tu hi keh de ise cake katne ke liye...'

Niyati's eyes gleaming with a flame of peevishness flicked towards him and Daya with an equable smile, clipped his tongue for the first time,:'maaf kijiye doctor...Maine to bas...nanijee ka order carry out kiya tha...Ye cake...' he raised it towards her and uttered the rest a little irresolutely,:'nanijee ke taraf se ...aap ko deke...mera kaam pura hoga...' there was an odd tranquility she found within his eyes which defied the anger inside her that had been shooting high till now...She averted her glance a little forcefully from the man with the scare to hurt him by her idiotic tendency of being reproachful...Daya,though seeing her nonchalant enough, placed the cake over the table, trying to hide the discomfort...For some second he occupied himself in reading her reaction until the old lady interrupted, :'arey Daya...jaise dress main kaha tha...waisa mila tujhe?'

Daya grunted with despair forgetting to mention that and replied finally,:'haa mil gaya hai...' He delved into his bag and taking out a thick plastic bag he handed it over to the old lady...

:'ye sab ka kya jaroorat tha?' now Niyati asked and moved towards the table venturing to restore her confident self back,:'aur tumhe to pata hai nani...' she concentrated on her polished nails,:'ke main birthday manati nahi hun...aur bhala hi...' her stone eyes archly noticed Daya once as she asserted,:'Daya ko ye baat maloom na ho...magar...tum ko to pata tha...'

The face of the old lady pervaded with a dark layer as all the blood as if suddenly siphoned from her face...Daya's avid eyes noted that and he now interposed gently yet with a rare stoutness that abruptly descended upon him perhaps not to bear the poignant eyes of an old lady who was desirous to enjoy every tiny moment of her life,:'pata hai doctor...' he paused meaningfully before resuming,:'sab pata hai doctor...Magar ...' his eyes darted everywhere in his inhibition to express his view in that matter,:'magar...naniji ka bhi to koi mang reh sakta hai...hai na?' he anticipated for her answer but she was abnormally stiffened and cold to give him even a flippant reply..

:'jin logo ka yaad se...aap ...janam din manate nahi hain...kya...woh log bhi...khush ho payenge aap ko dukhi dekh ke...khas taur pe...is din me?' he paused and returned back firmly,:' woh log is duniya me...aap ke pas nahi rahe...is baat ka gham...har din ka hai doctor...' his voice turned persuasive,:'ye kami har din ka hai...Na hi kisi ek din ka ...ki bas usi din gham ko manaya jaye...'

Niyati's sparkling eyes were restless in registering and analyzing each and every word of the man...Her nose was abnormally crinkled and her brows drew together in her effort to gauge the depth of his words...

:'waise ...kaha jaye to...' he was hesitant and it reflected over his face,:'aaj ka din...un logo ke zindegi ka...ek khushi ka din hai...' he tried to discern Niyati's mood but her face had been screened with her hair, :'aaj aap janam liye the...aur aap ka khushi khushi...is duniya me jeena hi...un logo ka safalta hoga...' he paused, batted his confused eyelids and resurrected back,:' woh log nahi rahe...magar...unke parchhai ko to rakh ke gaye na...is duniya me...' for a flicker of second his voice trembled impelling Niyati to look at him at once as her hair blew into disarray...He flashed a smile at her though it was pregnant with a stifling anguish...Niyati's eyes shone with an unknown emotion as a smirk escaped from her tantalizing lips gazing at the man steadily...Daya dropped his glance and sighed in tiredness...Niyati though possessed further the power of being daring as she advancing towards him, put the question sharply,like an interviewer,:'ye sab aap ko kaise pata chala?'

An innocent naivety seeped through his face as he replied like a perplexed interviewee,:' nanijee se...' he paused as astonishment blending with disbelief crossed Niyati's face...

:'aap ka janam din manane ki baat se hi woh kitni khush ho jate hain,' his face turned affectionate ,:'to sochiye...ke agar aap ka ...janam din...manaya jata...to...'

:'to?' Niyati asked as impatience was nagging her badly-impatience that made her every nerve tout, that suddenly revived every pore of her body...

:'to...aap ...ek pal me...kaise khush kar sakte the un ko...' replied Daya steadily though with a fright to face Niyati's screaming disapproval..

The old lady wished to natter on wrapping the young man within her affectionate arms as her eyes moistened unknowingly...But she was prudent enough not to chim in into their conversation and she finally shuffled towards the couch to plump herself onto there...

Niyati gazed deep into him for some perceivable seconds before heaving a sigh with flaring nose,inferring,:'shayaad...aap...sahi keh rahe hain...' her vision became nebulous and a dolorous smile curled in the corner of her lips,:' mom papa pe naraz ho ke...na to main khush huyi...' she confessed in abject submission,:'na nani ko khush kar paayi...' she started mooning over deeply until Daya's voice dashed onto her lovelorn heart,:'hume ummeed hai...ki aap kabhi na kabhi...jaroor manayenge janam din...'

Niyati's fervent eyes wandered through his eager face for some seconds before she pressed her lips in a very known and confident gesture shrugging once,: 'all right...' a grin decked her face,: 'I am ready to cut the cake...'

:'are re...' the old lady butted in,:'aise kaise haa?' a witty curl that existed till now in her lips broadened into a smile as she stated further looking at her already abashed granddaughter with almost a penetrating glance,:' pehle sajna savarna padega tumhe...phir jake dusra kaam...' she broke off abruptly scrutinizing the face of Niyati which was sprinkled with crimson colour of shyness but she was sage enough to cover it with a fleeting shrug while the old lady stated in an air of authority,:' Ye naya dress pehen le...Daya se mangvaya main...chal abhi jaa...' Niyati rolled her eyes flaunting feigned tiredness and taking the plastic bag she steamed into her room and clang the door closed...

Pasting herself with the door she kept chuckling for a minute before allowing her gaze to the ceiling sinking deep into a frenzied fervour...She clung tight the plastic bag that Daya had brought to her...Might it be...the wish of her grandmother; might it be the order of her grandmother that was merely carried out by the man...but...he had brought it to her...A smirk curled in a corner of her lips as she with trembling hand took out the dress from the bag...She caught at her breath and her eyes protruded in awe watching it...It was an extremely beautiful ethnic lehenga of red colour embroidered beautifully with golden threads...She slowly touched the glowing russet satin top that she just discovered coiled up with the lehenga...An electric delight as if started surging over nipping every

pore of her body...She felt a queer and unusual shyness in seeing her face in the mirror...Her eyes dimmed and glowed abnormally within the darkness of the room figuring out the mischief of Daya in calling her just to make her disappointed so that...she wouldn't be able to measure the delight, she would be receiving later..She sniffed the fragrance of the satin top and kept flashing elusive smile within her tempestuous thought that...it was the fragrance of ...the man himself...She kept nuzzling the top for sometimes with half closed impassioned eyes before planting some furtive kisses over it ardently..It took a little time to dismiss everything with a chuckle in order to get ready..

(In the Drawing room)

The old lady didn't want to squander the opportunity of teasing the coy young man who seemed to be the embodiment of suaveness..

:'waah Daya...tune to kaamaal hi kar diya...Jis Nini ko main pichhle bada tera salo me kabhi raazi na kara payi...' her one eye screwed at him as she delivered with humour,:'tu chukti me woh kar diya..haa?'

Daya,sitting now in front of the old lady, flashing as usually a gentle and soothing smile, almost startled inside...The facial expression of the old lady indicated something which created a frisson of scare down his spine... He was destitute of any thought and it was not clear to him why a wave of discomfort tripling inside him...

The old lady was prudent enough to veer the discussion with a compassionate smile,:'are Dayaa...woh cake aur dress ka bill de mujhe...kam se kam woh kaam karke rakh lun main abhi...' she kept prattling,:'pata nahi Nini ko kitna waqt lagega...iske baad khana lagaungi aur...' she stopped perceiving that Daya was silent...She kept her glance over his somewhat disconcerted face and asked further,:'kya baat hai Daya? kis soch me par gaya? Bill lana bhul gaya kya?' she laughed and said simultaneously,:'Tu ekdam tere nanaji jaise hai re...woh bhi aise hi the...bada bhola...' her eyes glistened for some seconds before she returned into the reality and suggested, :'achcha baba itna fikr na karna parega...Mujhe bata cake aur dress milake kitna kharch huya? Bill ka jaroorat nahi hai...'

:'nanijee...' spluttered Daya irresolutely..

:'are keemat to na bhula na?' the old lady said comically

The perplexity hadn't dispelled from Daya's face as he ventured,:'sach me mujhe...keemat yaad nahi hai...'

A puckish curl rippled over the lips of the old lady as she was prompt to react,:'badmash ladka...yaad nahi ya nahi bata raha hai?'

A squirm smile seeped through his face as he dawdled in answering,:' Nniyati ko...maine...kabhi kuchh na diya...' an inconvenience was visible as he added,:' aj is khushi ka mauka jab mila...tab ...' he paused as his flummoxed eyes darted here & there,:' jaroori hai woh paisa wapas karna?'

As the old lady looked into the beseeching glance of the man, she felt immediately an up rushing affection for him and said gently,:'Tu to phool laya hai...card bhi laya hai...aur...' she was genly interposed as Daya divulged,:'woh dress aur cake aap hi ne diya hai nanijee...mujhe pata hai...' he paused and then came back,:'paiso se khareedne se hi bas diya nahi jata hai nanijee...woh aap ne aap ki pyar se diya hai...'

The old lady was bemused and kept looking at him with infinte tenderness though she kept repeating,:'magar Daya...Nini ko pata chale to...'

:'to woh aap ko kuchh nahi kahegi...sab daat bas mujh pe hi padega...' he laughed ingenuously revivifying the atmosphere of the residence while the old lady perceived that the vivacity had able to touch her heart too and she with a throaty laugh confided a secret to him...


	13. Chapter 13

[Niyati's room]

As she pouted prettily to colour her lips,an up rushing discomfort engulfed her...For a flicker of second, it seemed as if she herself scoffed at her own activities,:"you are behaving like a nonsensical idiot...'her dark eyebrows slanted in a frown as she occupied herself in asking whether she had been behaving like a mawkish silly woman? Had she been carried away with her frenzied thought? The lines of worry over her forehead eased soon as the delirious ecstasy that throbbed relentlessly since his coming there unexpectedly, outsmarting her confident self possessed her once again with a hypnotic magnetism...She grinned stealing a furtive glance at the mirror when putting maang tikka over her head...A sigh of relief escaped from her lips as she considered herself fully prepared to face him...A faint smile of bashfulness crossed her face as it suddenly hit her brain that it was her birthday only and she shouldn't behave as if it was the first day of the weird emotion she had been enduring since last ten years...Switching the lights off as she advanced towards the closed door, it seemed as if a gusty breeze dashed onto her bare neck...

:'doctor...' a whisper she heard and felt in her left ear which compelled to close her eyes...Electric pleasure overflowed mercilessly through her body leaving her breathless & transfixed...

:'aap ki churni...'his voice, deep & sensual sent a ripple of exquisite crave through her...

Summoning up every bit of power as she twirled, she felt as if something stabbed at her heart as he indicated towards her dressing table by his gleaming eyes...There was a placid yet skittish smile reflected over his face...Her eyes fell over the churni she left there in her forgetfulness and she hastened in putting it but turning her head she discovered no one there...She was perplexed and even frightened for a fraction of second but after that a coy smile appeared on her face at her bewilderment...

Opening the door she found herself in profound darkness that befuddled her more...Her darting glance flicked here & there for a little light and moving blindly towards the verandah she found it...Flickering flame was getting visible from there...She tiptoed a little more checking back the tinkling sounds that would be associated with her walk now and peeping out from the door her embellished eyes with kohl experienced something which once more took her breath away...The man was kindling diyas one by one on the edge of the verandah...As he poured the oil into diyas with concentration his face transfigured and gilded with a heavenly magic that could freeze Niyati hour after hour to gaze at him,with unfathomable deference..

The tune of a ghazal was floating through along with an aromatic blow of breeze...Had nani been listening to it...or...it was she herself who had been listening such a tune? Had it been intangible and incoherent?

Charage Ishq jalane ki raat ayi hai

charage Ishq jalane ki raat ayi hai..

Kisi ko apna banane ki raat ayi hai...

charage ishq jalane ki raat ayi hai...

Her heart was thudding terribly and pulse was pounding fast...Had she ever experienced anything so captivatingly attractive before? Had she ever discerned before...that within his somber face so very grace had been concealed carefully? A grown up person would gradually and inevitably loss the naivety of his childhood but...the innocence perhaps hadn't been tarnished as he had grown up...

woh aaj aye hain mehfil me chandni le kar...woh aaj aye hain mehfil me chandni le kar...

ke roshni me nahane ki raat ayi hai

ke roshni me nahane ki raat ayi hai...

kisi ko apna banane ki raat ayi hai...

charage ishq jalane ki raat ayi hai...

Niyati felt pressure upon her heaving chest as her eyes had deepened and swelled slowly...Indeed...he came like an angel with his devout respect for her child like grandmother...but...why there a storm brew in her heart to shatter all these happiness? How could she reveal that a maddening cyclone as if arising within her, endeavoured to ooze out through every pore of her body...It was urgent..irresistible and turning her insane in desiring to be close to him...to his mystical yet abyssal deep heart...How could she divulge that all these flooding lamps still would fail to illuminate her life if...the diya he had kindled without his knowledge within her delicately pampered heart wouldn't be shielded by his compassion and care...

Her eyes closed in reflex and some moisture seeped out of her embellished eyes...

Phalak ka chand bhi sharmake muh chhupayega...phalak ka chand bhi sharmake muh chhupayega...

naquab rukh se uthane ki raat ayi hai

naquab rukh se uthane ki raat ayi hai

kisi ko apna banane ki raat ayi hai

charage ishq jalane ki raat ayi hai..

A dizzying current racing through her tried to throttle her breath...Her glossy red lips parted pathetically to say something, but relinquishing the hope, murmured beneath her breath,:'phalak ka chand bhi...sharmake muh...chhupayega...jab...woh aap ko ..dekhega...Aap ka ujla huya chehra aur...hawa me...udte huye...aap ke..kuchh udas baal...mera ...jaan...le raha hai Dayaa...Aisa lag raha hai...aaj ki raat...aap ke jeevan me...udasi ka akhri raat ho..Ishq ki...ek ek bund se...aap ke sukhe huye dil ko...sinch dun...Bas...ekbar aap...mere akho ke andar jhak ke to dekhiye...'

Nigaah e saqi se paigham chhalak rahi hai sharaab...Nigaah e saqi se paigham chhalak rahi hai sharaab...

piu ke pine pilane ki raat ayi hai

piu ke pine pilane ki raat ayi hai...

kisi ko apna banane ki raat ayi hai...

charage ishq jalane ki raat ayi hai...

kisi ko apna banane ki raat ayi hai..

Eyes brimmed with tears-tears of intensifying yearn; tears of horrifying thirst and tumultuous crave...

The overwhelming emotion with which she had been combating, seemed to swathed around her neck forming a lump that she couldn't gulp back...It was beyond her tolerance to be silent...;to behave as if only comradeship was the ultimate border of their relationship; to deck her face with a candid smile yet conceal the impassioned fire that smouldering inside...How would she be able to fend off such a perilous attraction? How long she would have to maintain that pretentious attitude? She kept fighting with the inexhaustible waves of emotions till Daya's glance fell over her..Initially he gave a cursory glance as he was very much absorbed with the lamps but within a tiny second, his glance stuck with her...Niyati felt as if blood coursing through her veins like an awakened river and with a giddy sense of pleasure she let her happiness show as it was the high time she could embolden herself in facing him...She tingled more & more as she approached towards him...Daya's baffled face slowly brightened with an unruffled smile...Tinkling sounds of her jewellery made the atmosphere a little queer as it lasted until she stopped coming beside him, raising her brimming eyes which seemed more intriguing as the kohl smudged with her tears..

Daya shrugged in unpretentious appreciation for the lady as a peaceful affectionate chuckle still lingering on his lips...Some seconds elapsed making her restive to that extent that she couldn't resist herself in asking, gazing at him with a tempting glance,:'kkuchh...kahenge nahi aap?'

Daya heaved a long sigh before displaying his thought,:'kehna...bematlab hai doctor...'he broke off and then returned back to explain,:'ek jharna ko dekh ke...kabhi koi kehta hai kya...ke...jharna tum sundar ho?'

Niyati's eyes lowered as a rush of pink stained on her cheeks...

Daya, maintained serene silence until it seemed odd and stifling,:"bagicha me...kuchh diya...jala dun?'

His deep voice made a rippling sensation through her body though she fought with it to flash a frank smile and ended up flashing a fleeting one at last,:'chaliye...'

Coming into the garden,Daya stooped down with lamps and match box while Niyati felt swirl of hesitation;kept fidgeting with a rare perturbation and finally offered him tardy help, bending herself...Daya was completely occupied with kindling lamp while Niyati started feeling a throttling pant inside her as her fervent eyes covertly showering caresses upon his solemn face...It was inconceivable how much time was getting flowed by,until she grunted in reflex as a painful sensation pricked her palm..

Daya,in a bustle took her palm within his and with a face hetting up with genuine worry,he let out,:'bohut jal raha hai? paani daalu?'

A shudder coursed down her as his touch drugging her sense...

Daya with shaking head,suggested,:'aap andar chaliye...aap ko diya jalana nahi hoga...'gentle admonition percolated through his voice making Niyati enraptured as her longing eyes busied in scrutinising every hue and colour of his face...His nearness was overwhelming...and ineffably intoxicating...How could she move away from there? How could she squander this opportunity? Yes,might she have a minor singe upon her palm...but...it resulted in giving her such a tremor of delight,perhaps she wouldn't ever be oblivious about it..as...it turned out to be...the first ...physical contact with...him...and why first? She wasn't sure...whether ...it was the last too...' A rueful smirk formed on her lips and her vision dimmed as her heart sang beneath her breath,:kaanto ki chubhan payi...phoolo ka maza bhi...Dil dard ke mausam me...roya bhi hasa bhi...'Tears pricked her eyes and didn't take much time to trickling down her pinkish cheeks...

Daya smelled something wrong in her behaviour but doctor pradhan and outlandish behaviour were inseparable -it seemed to him and he further ventured,with a gentle smile:'chaliye doctor...aap...' he had to broke off abruptly as Niyati with a frenetic passion revealed,levelling her glistening smudging eyes with his,:'mujhe...aap ko kuchh kehna hai..'her gasp was visible to him and he was flustered almost being impelled to look into her eyes? Within the darkness of the evening,and flickering lamps they froze as their gazes locked..Daya,putting much effort muttered slowly,being wrapped in profound perplexity,:'kkahiye...'

Niyati's glossy lips quivered;nose flared with the vehemence of emotion as every pore of her body fancied to be crushed within his tight embrace...The tensed silence was unbearable until Daya asked her in sheer astonishment,:'aap...aap ro rahi hai?'A dubious apprehension waved down his spine as his avid eyes were scanning her face till they heard the loud voice of the old lady,:'Daayaaa...Are kaha chala gaya tu?'

Daya awakened and hastened in replying her back,:"araha hun nanii...'he then glanced at her adorned face who still looking at him with mesmerising rapture,murmured,with a little discomfort,:'nanijee bula rahe hain...Hum...baad me...baat karenge?' he paused,giving her time to recover,:'chaliye,'he resumed and waited with worried batting of his eyeslids...Niyati lowered her gaze with a blushing face as the unspoken words kept throbbing inside and advanced filling the garden with the jingling sounds and allowing her fancy to overtake her, regarding the sound as the sigh of dejection of the nature..


	14. Chapter 14

:'are Nini? Tu?'exclaimed the old lady with mischievous nod,:'achcha? to tu taiyar ho gayi hai...aur mujhe na keh ke chhup chhup ke bagiche me haa...hmmmm...'

Niyati felt no urge to reply back as nani's words as if crawling into the pit of her stomach tickled her...Much effort needed to avoid eye contact with her witty grandmother who perhaps would take no time to discover that she had been weeping and that too in the presence of ...Daya!

A twinge of inconvenience stabbed Daya as the grandmother taunted her granddaughter and the smoggy apprehension scrabbled his heart a little deeper..

The old lady veered the topic quickly saying,:'chal cake kat le abhi...maine candle jala diya...jaldi chal...'Before Niyati could do anything,the old lady embraced her with a delightful face saying,:'kitni khubsurat lag rahi hai meri pyari Nini...Aaj to sapno ka desh ka raja bhi use dekh ke deewana ho jayega...' A faint chuckle Niyati couldn't conceal as her eyes yearned to flick towards the man standing behind her, with a bemused smile.. She slowly moved towards the table where a big sized chocolate cake was adorned with several flaming candles...Her gleaming eyes ventured to fell upon the man archly as her glossy lips were pressed to murmur,: 'main...candle bujhane me...vishwas nahi rakhti hun...'

A sudden jolt transpired within the man as he with a staggered face contemplated at the young lady...

Niyati added further, filling the atmosphere with the passion that was smouldering inside her,:'candles ko jalne dun...' a faint smile lingered over her lips as she took the knife and cut the cake in a daze and when her grandmother with emphatic zealousness feed her a piece of cake it appeared inconceivable to her...

:'are Daya ko khila de!'asked the old lady whipping her almost drugged senses..She would have to ...feed him! and that too...maintaining a phlegmatic attitude as if...he was...just a stranger for her... and even if not a stranger but just merely an ex colleague...but...Perplexity melding with pain swirled inside her and seeped through her face...Her hand shook as she picked up a piece of cake and raised it towards him but to her consternation & relief Daya accepted it by his hand and flashed a gentle beam at her...Niyati lowered her eyes quickly being aware about the curious eyes of her grandmother while she declared,masterfully,:'are pata hai tum sab ko...mujhe kitna bhukh lag raha hai? haa?'

Niyati was utterly staggered and with stark stupefaction she looked at the old lady...The magical evening was slipping by and she hadn't been much aware about the food she would offer to him...

She twirled to face him and managed to splutter,:'aap baithiye...Main khana banake laati hun...' she spun back with speed but stopped getting the voice of her nani,:'are ruk jaa...'

She hadn't fully been recovered from her fervent state but startled,standing at the brink of getting another pleasant surprise as the old lady divulged, delightfully, :'saara khana taiyar hai...Tu bas ake table pe baith ja...'

:'khana...mmagar...kaise..huya taiyar?'she mumbled in a tardy reply

The old lady carefully touched her palm and fetched her beside the dining table..:'dekh...sara khana Daya leke aya hain...taqi...' she nipped on her chin in an indulging voice,:'meri gudiya rani ko is din thora aram mile...'

Her pulse further beating treacherously and she desperately wanted to strangle the irregularity of her beats,saying,in a terse reply,:'magar...iska...' her lips denied to utter the rest as it seemed a lump descending slowly through her throat...

:'haa doctor...' Daya interposed with a devastating geniality,:'shayyaad...jaroorat nahi tha...Kyuki phir aapke hatho ka banaya huya khana milta hum sab ko...'humour touched his voice,:'magar...' he paused with an inscrutable chuckle and resurrected back,:'ye kyu jaroori hai ki...har kaam bas jaroorat se hi karna parega?'he paused looking at Niyati as if she was a temperamental child and sounded further,:'hmmmm?'His appealing smile melted away her every defense and she turned her face away from him,wearied by indecision...

:'maaf kijiye...'pre empted Daya,as his face softened with empathy & modesty,:'sara khana to bana ke la nahi saka...Kuchh kharid ke lana para...aur...'

Niyati felt as if her heart was brimming with an unknown emotion-heavy and tormenting, which would perhaps tear her apart if she remained sealing her lips any more..

:'main khaungi..'she gasped urgently, almost forcing her tears back making both her companion a little baffled..

:'hhum...sab ..khayenge,'she corrected herself with a forlorn smile..

:'ye huyi na baat,'beamed the old lady having been unaware about the cyclone within Niyati...:'mujhe pata tha meri Ninni maan jayegi..'

Daya,with an astounding glance, as if searched something within her face until revealing his mind,:'aap naraz to na ho gaye?'

Niyati looked at him,as her luminous eyes were restlessly wandering over his somewhat dazzled face..She struggled to keep the much needed nonchalance staring at his irresistibly attractive perplexity...She desperately yearned to scream to wipe off his superfluous guilt having been enveloped within his warm arms,:"kya aap ko...bas...meri narazgi hi dikhai deta hai? Kya abhi bhi...aap ka do akhein ...ye dekh nahi pate hain...ki...aap ne...Niyati ko...kitna badal diya? Kyu nahi dekh pa rahe hain aap?"

The old lady felt that her mouth was curved with amusement as Daya and Niyati standing riveted facing each other in bewilderment and she chose to cherish the moment sitting in chair...A slight nod appeared as her eyes narrowed with mischief...

:'aap ko...gussa dilana...'Daya returned back feeling the silence was long & stifling,:'mera maksad nahi tha...'a naive feebleness reflected through his face which impelling Niyati to lock her gaze with his until her eyes gleamed like glassy rock..

But everything darkened abruptly before she could reply back and Daya grunted before picking up his cell phone from his pocket,:'is se kam chal jayega..'he said,:'jab tak na...'

he was interrupted as the old lady divulged,:"dinner candle light me ho jaye? Kyu Nini?'

Niyati had to come back into the reality to deal with her mischievous grandmother,:'lights tumne off kiya hai?'an affectionate smile decked on her lips,:'naniiiii?' she tried to scold her repressing the delightful laughter..

:'are kya phark pare haa? chahe maine off kiya ya aise hi power gaya...khana to hum khayenge abhi...Kyu Daya?' her voice was coloured with affectionate taunts and teases...

The room was illuminated by a big candle and with the light,both Daya and Niyati observed that the old lady was preparing to light at least ten more candles...They looked at each other chuckling with humour and as their eyes fell apart,Niyati stated impulsively,:'to ye tumhara kiadhara hai...candle light dinner ka plan pehle se kiya tum..'

:'kyu?'she temporized in replying,:'tujhe to pasand hoga na?'

:'mujhe nahi hai pasand,'answered Niyati hastily casually and a little embarrassingly...

:'tab nahi tha pasand,'the old lady had unflagging energy,:'ab hoga..'she replied,though laconically but meaningfully skimming her eyes over the features of Daya & Niyati once..

Waves of scare started flowing inside her as her breath caught at her lungs...Would her implying words affect him adversely? Would he take umbrage at nani's fancy?

Her frightened apprehension was soon dispelled as Daya reached her helping in lighting those candles..

The flames of the candles reflecting through his eyes made his appearance magical...They finished the task within five minutes making the room mystically brightened up...

:'main naraz nahi hun..'answered Niyati impelling herself to maintain as normal as possible,:'please baithiye...' she offered Daya a seat before taking her own seat...

:'khane me aaj kya kya hain main bata deti hun,'hastened the old lady with soaring spirit,:'Nun...Baigan bharta shahi gobi...paneer kofta...bundi raita...aur gurh payash...'she paused with a smiling face and then resumed,:'are woh special item to tu hi bata de Daya...'

An abashed smile rippled through Daya's face as he chose to play it mischievously being secretive,:'woh to nahi bata raha hun...Birthday girl kha ke hi bataenge...ki woh kya hai..'His illuminated face glinting with boyish skittishness weakened Niyati's fragile restrain...She though masked her inner turmoil with a deceptive smile trying to sound confident and unaffected,:'koshish karungi...'

Daya took the initiative to serve the food,and revealed,slowly,:'waise...mujhe pata nahi hai khana kaise bana hai...'he paused and perhaps wished to return back if Niyati hadn't butted in with witty sarcasm,:'aap to badle nahi...'her puckish eyes shone abnormally,:'mera keemti salah bhi yaad nahi rakha,' she decided to flaunt pretentious priggishness, :'aur is bar aap ko uska keemat chukana parega...'

Daya's face lightened with serene beam as he replied indulging her humour,:'actually...salah...pasand nahi aya tha...kya karu?'

Shyness blending with annoyance flashed through her eyes as Daya added more,:'keemat to aaj chukana hi parega..special day jo hai...'

Silence reigned the room-Silence of gratifying delight..Daya broke it finally,:'chaliye aap log shuru kijiye...'

:'aur aap?'inquired Niyati,with an air of possessiveness...

A faint chuckle crossed Daya's face as he dawdled in responding,:'Kya aaj ye achcha nahi rehta agar...mujhe...Nani aur Nini ko ek sath khilane ka mauka mil jata?'

Amusement flickered in her eyes as she returned pressing her lips together,:'magar meri birthday pe meri rule chalegi...and that is...sab ko ek sath khana parega..'

Her words were immediately beefed up by the old lady,:'haa beta...Nini sahi keh rahi hai...Tu bhukha baith ke hum ko khilaega to humara kya maja? na na...tu bhi khana shuru kar...'she stated quite demandingly.:'le chal...'she added before savouring the taste and smell of 'baigan bharta'...

A ravishing grin emerged on the face of the man before he expressed his concurrence with them,:'shayad...aap ki Nini...sahi hi kehti hai Nanijee..'

Niyati's glance deepened,intesified with a meaningless peevishness as she averted it though a coy curl was visible in the corner of her lips..

:'kaise sikh liya itna achcha khana banana haa?'asked nani in between chewing the food with difficulty,:'kis ne sikhaya?'

Daya's face beamed with a discerning yet coy smile while Niyati's dark eyebrows arched mischievously as she thrust herself,:'kya kha ke itna impress ho gaye nani? baigan bharta?'

:'haa tune khaya nahi abhi tak? are kha ke dekh...'the old lady was at the peak of delight...

:'hmmm...magar mujhe to bataya nahi koi ke kaun sa item ghar me banaya gaya tha?'she divulged,bringing a note of feigned huffishness in her voice but little she imagined at that moment that her taunt could rebound on her..

:'bataya jata to kya karti?'asked the old lady making her granddaughter baffled, :'woh dishes tu pehle kha leti hai na?'She giggled like a little scamp...The swirling embarrassment slowly transforming into an inexplicable irritation banged on Niyati's every nerve and she wished to rap out loud with rudeness but as her eyes flicked towards his disconcerted face,the anger melting and evaporating rapidly..

He was though sage & quick enough to handle the situation with a conciliatory gesture,:'woh...aap ko..samajh me ajayega...kya ghar ka...kya bahar kaa..'he forced a smile perhaps to assuage the discomfort of Niyati that was oozing out through flicking of her jaw muscles...

:'pata chal gaya...'her voice abruptly lowered into a whisper...

Daya's lips parted in astonishment and it couldn't be restrained back,:'kkaise...pata chala aap ko?'

Niyati's lips quivered as she was desirous to reply back,but not drily,hemming themselves in comradeship but ensconding themselves at the shingly beach,twinning her arms round his neck,she longed to whisper in his ears,:'pata chal jata hai Daya...tumhara hatho ka banaya huya khana me...' nuzzling on his cold earlobe she wished to add,:'mirchi aur namak..do hi kam hote hai...'

:'main batati hun..'grandmother emerged to rescue her child...

Niyati felt a strong wave of shudder as if flowed through her spine..She trembled taking time in coming back from her fertile and fervent mooning over to the reality..

:'kyuki...jo jo khana Daya banaya hain...us me...pyar ka swad hai...'she declared with an ingenuous grin unknowingly making Niyati mortified more & more...

With an impelling & conscious effort she endeavoured to put her every concentration upon devouring and savouring the tastes of the items and her face turned sombre,in between switching herself from a frenetically delirious state to a practically stable one..

For about a minute silence grew tight with tension-tension perhaps which had no definite reason or angle...

Niyati busied herself with the food or rather she resorted to the food with the aim of keeping her mind elsewhere but...she took very little to discern the fact that her futile attempt of keeping the man out of her brain would only mock her leaving her terribly weary...Daya's culinary skill was undoubtedly praiseworthy and when...she was getting enamoured tasting the food he had cooked just for her birthday;when eyes started threatening her to swell with moisture ;when a wild insanity shattering her every restrain; when she helplessly floundering within the ocean of upsurging emotions, she tried to clutch her analytical skill to save herself reaching at the last point of pretence..

:'baigan ka bharta,'she broke the silence trying to form a complacent smile,:'shahi gobi...' she was taking time,deliberately using sophistry to obscure the pounding of her heart..,:'gurh payash...'she resumed ,:'aur...mitha alu ka halwa ...aap ka banaya huya hai...'

Daya gazed at her face with amusing wonder until he was startled and discomfitted by the jestful remark of the old lady,:'dekha Dayaa...tere hatho ka swad bina pareshani pehchan liya meri Nini ne!'

Niyati's eyes were glittering like stars as her glance was fixed at the disconcerted face of the man-the dangerously flickering candle light pouring over his bashful face which was just decked with the sprinkle of crimson shyness,made him a perfect combination of innocence and maturity...His ever charming face turned a shade deeper appealing as he revealed banteringly,leaving the young lady in front of him almost breathless..:'aap sabhi ka khushi...woh mera return gift hai...Woh main...sath leke jaunga...'pure delight was reflecting through his candid smile quickening the pulse of Niyati and urging her to whisper beneath her breath,:'aur jane na dun to? agar yaha atak ke rakh lun to?' A rueful smirk couldn't be repressed as she continued within her frenzied thoughts,:'aap ko maloom bhi hai...kya kya aap ka hai? kya kya aap ka ho chuka hai?'

:'are haaa...Nini?' interferred the old lady,:'Daya ke liye kya return gift hai tere pas?'she finished the querry by nodding meaningfully while her eyes twinkled with mischief..

Niyati maintained a stifle silence as her restive eyes wandered through her plate and finally she came back with an evasive one,:'aisa bhi to ho sakta hai...ki..mera diya huya return gift ...Daya ko...pasand na aya...to?'

:'are mujhe to mera gift mil gaya hai,'countered Daya with candour

:'jee nahi...'disapproved Niyati emphatically,:'agar aap ko lag raha hai ki aap ka banaya huya khana ko main 100 out of 100 de diya...to aap galat samajh rahe hain..'she revealed seemingly being a little defiant..

:'Ninii?'exclaimed the old lady with a mixture of surprise and displeasure..

With a luxurious smugness of a connoisseur,she inferred,:'halua aur payash kuchh zada hi mitha hai...Agle bar se kuchh kam mitha bana lena...'

Daya received the criticism with unswerving spirit and a faint chuckle along with repeated nod just like a school student who could be rectified by the invaluable advices of teacher..

:'baigan bharta aur shahi gobi me mirchi thora aur zada hona chaiye tha...'she added looking at him with feigned disdain..

:'yaad rahega,' Daya displayed his thoughts,:'aap ki keemti advices...' his face transfigured with the gleam of a skittish smile,:'is bar bhul ne ka galati nahi karunga..'

:'that's better,'concluded Niyati with a queen's arrogance but failed to repress the laughter back as Daya busrt into an animated laughter...

The old lady's face gleamed with an impish chuckle and within a minute her vision dimmed with an incomprehensible bliss...


	15. Chapter 15

An ineffable discomfort engulfed him-it seemed to Daya...It was the high time he should leave the residence of Niyati after the quiet yet blissful celebration of her birthday but ...his vow to listen to her words kept him riveted there like an irresolute creature who had been shackled by an eccentric inconvenience...Niyati had offered him soft drinks after dinner and he was waiting for her to come sitting on the stair like seats in the garden...His face was brightened with the lights of the candles and his serene eyes seemed to wander over the flagged passage of the garden...

Niyati stepped sluggishly towards him, holding two glasses full of drink...The coruscating effect and the swish of her lehenga seemed to be merged with the mystical darkness of the night...A faint smile of profound reverence reflected over her face till his feature was getting visible to her...She stopped, watching Daya's gleaming face which seemed ethereal at that moment...It seemed if she had the magical power to stop the flowing time, then perhaps she would use it at the very moment...to gaze at him for hours, being destitute of awareness and the happenings around her.. The spasmodic trembling within her couldn't be controlled and she could felt her rising pulse as the tension grew inside her..When she was desperately fighting with the quivering surge in her veins, her every effort shattered as the man started humming a tune of ghazal and the sonority of his voice dashing upon every nook & corner of her heart & body,seemed to mingle with her flowing blood, leaving her weak against her knee..She wished to plump herself down there for listening to his melodious croon making herself inconspicuous..but...Daya's restive eyes abruptly fell upon her when he was looking around him,perhaps to fight with the loneliness?

:'are!'he was embarrassed initially,:'aap aa gaye hain..' stated he with a very genial smile as he advanced towards her suavely..

Niyati ventured to smile back, but gradually the smile trailed away as her gleaming eyes pregnant with unspoken messages and queries, regarded him scanningly...

Daya felt disconcerted under her queer glance...and almost impelled to clip his tongue as the time was flowing by and the coolness of the midnight started descending upon the garden besieged by the greenery..

:'doctor...'he murmured with an odd scare and the ripple of discomfiture over his face perhaps brought her back to wakefulness...Forcing an inane smile over her overwrought face she raised one glass towards him...Daya received it with an amiable smile and then cued her to come to the place where he had been sitting...Niyati followed him like a bewildered one who had become bereft of awareness..

The distant sough of the sea was getting audible and a half moon was peeping through the rustling foliages of the trees...

:'cheers,'Niyati muttered in a flummoxed state of mind, though wearing the veneer of a confident one...

Daya further with a courteous smile, started sipping the drink slowly, fixing his eyes at elsewhere...

Niyati's expectant eyes though concentrated upon his moving lips those radiated a vitality that drew her like a magnet...It seemed that the swooshing leaves were mocking at their long brittle silence...

Niyati's lips parted and stiffened feeling the bottomless helplessness of her heart...to unravel a simple truth to him...She took a long breath punctuated with several even gasps..

Daya perceived the need of having a conversation and cudgeling his brain he forced himself to start it,:'ajeeb sa...shaam tha na...aaj?'

Silence of Niyati drove him to turn his face towards her and to his utter consternation he noticed that she was slowly and perhaps unmindfully pouring the drink out of her glass into a tub..Before he could utter anything, Niyati began answering him,:'haaa...'a note of faint scorn seeped through her voice,:'hoga aap ke pas ajeeb...'she paused and resurrected back soon,:'magar mere pas...yaadgar ban ke rahega ye shaam..'

Daya's eyes narrowed in astonishment and he kept scanning her face with a quizzical glance..

Niyati took another minute in looking at him with a forced smile that unknowingly turned lugubrious, revaling her stabbing pain,:'thanks...'she succeeded in uttering, pressing her lips,:'aap ke karan...aaj...'she was desperate to conceal every pant of her in between every two words,:'nani ko...bohut hi zada...khushi mila...' It seemed that her heart would burst with the burden of pang having been insanely restive to divulge,:'aur sab se zada khushi mila nani ke natin ko...Kya aap ko kuchh dikhai deta hai? kaise dikhai dega aap ko? Kabhi mere akho ki bhasha padne ka koshish kiya aap? Kabhi aap ke patthar jaise dil ko ye jan ne ki jee kiya...ki...kyu ye ladki...adhi raat me...aap ke sath baithe hai abhi? Ajeeb to aap hain Dayaa...' A woebegone smile rippled through her face and her eyes darted here & there in her vain effort to appease her pent up pain and when her eyes accidentally fell upon him,she boggled at his normally softened face which flooded with a horrendous gloom..

:'sahi kaha aap ne..'he clipped his tongue,dismally,:'yaad dila diya mujhe...'he sighed perhaps in dejection,:'ke...nani mera koi nahi hai...'

Embittered repentance swirled inside Niyati for her indiscreet remarks but...she was too late..Her guilt burgeoned gradually as Daya further added,:'unko khush dekhne ke liye...kuchh karne se...mujhe thanks milega..'tears glistened at the corner of Daya's eyes which he daubbed quickly with a bleak smile...

Niyati gazed deep at him and felt within a minute that her eyes were brimming with pain as she continued cursing herself for her impetuosity..The man who had left no stone unturned to make her grandmother happy,she would do no good for him except being the reason of his pain & discomfort..She kept fighting & floundering within agonizing maelstrom until it weighed her down beyond human endurance and in fierce restiveness she did what she never dreamt of doing,in coherence...Her embellished hand with bangles touched his artistic long fingers with chinking sound while her voice flickered dangerously as she spluttered,: 'please...aise na kahiye...'

Daya was staggered and his luminous eyes were widened in astonishment...Before he could react, hot exultant tears trickled down her pinkish cheeks and glossy lips started quivering in her hopeless effort to curb her emotions..

Daya reached perhaps at the paroxysm of bafflement and some seconds went by in bridling his perplexity...

:'I am sorry,'Niyati's voice choked and turned more husky than usual,:'agar...maine...' she paused and swallowed a knot of pain..:'aap ko...taqleef diya to...'drops of tears sparkled standing over her lashes...

Daya waking up from the morasses of confusion,muttered out,:'maafi...shayad...mujhe mangna ..chaiye tha doctor...' deep anguish imprinted on his face..:'shayad...main hi...galat keh diya..' he paused irresolutely while a stifling silence throbbed between them till he came back with a wan smile,:'aap...shayad..thak gayi hai...Aap ko...aram ka ...jaroorat hai...'

Deep sobs racked her inside and in her effort to repress it,she clenched Daya's palm tightly...

Daya felt that icy fear twisted around him and with an apprehension as his sympathetic eyes fell upon her,the galvanizing glance of her created a tremor inside him...What had been transpiring since the evening though was queer but satisfying until now...Eccentricity could perfectly be matched with doctor Pradhan..but...her behaviour didn't seem to be outrageous but rather disorganized...It seemed as if there had been a tight knot within her, begging for release...Something very serious with which perhaps her life had been merged, lurking beneath her friendly, smiling bantering exterior...Had she been pretending to be happy & jovial? Had she been striving with difficulty in cracking witty jokes? The lines of concentration deepened along his brows as the pressure of her hand was quite perceivable to him...

There was a spark of some indefinable emotion in her eyes which he ...He cudgeled his brain to stop musing about all these as an inconceivable scare was scampering inside him...

:'aap se...' Niyati's voice lowered to almost a whisper,:'kuchh kehna tha..'

Daya replied looking at some tub, masking his restiveness with feigned apathy, :'kahiye..'

One full minute elapsed with the stillness of the atmosphere...The leaves were swaying sluggishly making them aware about the peaceful yet fervent quietness between them...

:'aap ne...'spluttered Niyati,with glowing eyes,:'shaam ko aaj kaha ke...'she paused, sighed and returned back,:'meri khushi khushi...is duniya me...jeena hi...' cyclonic waves of shyness tried desperately to seal her lips but she vanquished every obstacle and continued in unswerving spirit,:'mere parents ka...safalta hoga...'

Daya waited for her words to be completed while an innate tenderness reflected over his face...

Niyati temporized perhaps in mustering her thoughts twiddling with her bangles and came back lately,:'mmagar...meri khushi...' she paused closing her eyes as her pulse skittered alarmingly...

The silence was long and queer testing stringently the patience of the man...He kept studying her face,unhurriedly,feature by feature,and an anxiety mingled with apprehension seeped through his face when he at last murmured,gently,:'doctor...'

The pressure of her ornamented hand rose as very slowly and almost inconceivably her fingers found places within his long ones to clench his palm...

Beads of sweat gathered and glistened over her forehead & neck as she was heaving to find her own voice and it finally transpired when Daya jabbered for the consecutive time,:'doctor...aap...' his words trailed away as Niyati breathed fervently,:'aap se jura huya hai Dayaa...' Her glowing eyes wandered through the face of Daya which was brightened mystically with an opalescent hue due to the hide & seek of the moon and the buffeting leaves of the trees.. Sheer bafflement & surprise siphoned the blood from his face as he gazed at her bereft of speech...

The parlance of her eyes turned opaque as her susurrated words blending with the cool breeze rustled through the trees...:'ye na keh ke...main reh nahi pa rahi thi Dayaa...dus saal se...jo chhupane ki...koshish kiya...woh...aaj...' her words quivered with bellowing emotions,:'aaj...na...kehti...' her voice flickered vehemently; cheeks stained with crimson in pain; nose flared dangerously...:'to...' She was on the verge of breaking down but fended off and startled as Daya's left palm touched her palm that was locked with his right one...He averted his eyes finally though a shocking incredulity left over his face...His restive eyes seemed to settle finally over a distant tub with a vague glance...

Niyati's expectant eyes gleamed with luster when she whispered further in her unbridled urge to penetrate into his mystical yet enchanting musings..:"kkuchh...kahenge nahi aap?"

Her breath was getting choked with an apprehension but she fought well with it as a wan smile of him revived her dwindling hope...Daya,dawdled in answering her perhaps to be more poised and the candle light though failed screening the discomfort that reflecting over his face,aching Niyati...

:'pata nahi chal raha hai...'he could manage to utter after almost five long minutes,:'kya kahu...' perhaps he was going to say more but before that he felt the pressure of Niyati's hand released abruptly from his and as his face turned towards her,Niyati's face had been contorted in her dangling efforts to repress her emotions...

Before she could surmise any idea about his feelings within her mind,he hastened,urgently,:'kyuki...aisa lag raha hai ...ki...mujhe...itna uchai me...bithane ke pehle...kash...'

The surging pain was getting mitigated by itself as she concentrated on his words that appeared most precious for her life at that moment...

:'kaash...mere bare me...main aap ko...kuchh keh pata...' rueful hue glowed over his face,:'kaash aap ye jan pate ki...' it seemed that a pensive shimmer trembled over his eyes,:"jis aadmi ko...aap ...' a discomfiture contained a little shyness & embarrassment,rippled through his face,:'ye darja de diya...woh...kaisa hai...' he paused & sighed,:'kya hai uska ateet...'

Niyati's eyes deepened as she murmured beneath her breath,'Na samajh...buddhu...ye bhi nahi pata hai aap ko...ke...mera dil...sab pad liya...bas aap ka muskurahat dekh ke...aap ka jhuki nazro ka bhasha dekh ke...aap ka akho ka natkhatpan dekh ke...aap ka...' her breath caught at her lungs as Daya glanced at her with a rare tenderness & sympathy that she had never noticed before..

:'kya faida?'Niyati's impassioned whisper reverbrated through the air,:'jab...samundar me...' A frightening tremor electrified him locking his eyes with her melting magical eyes,:'koi kud gayi hai...'

Daya evaded eyes with a flummoxed expression that already written over his face...Indeed,what would be the gain if one had already committed a blunder? A weary sigh escaped from his throat and a searing guilt swirled up within him,to even look at her brimming & expectant eyes...When he was grappling in the dark to find a plausible reply,her words made him more befuddled spreading russet hue over his face...

:'ab to ya phir...samundar utarna hai..nahi to...dub jana hai...' her words pregnant with unbridled passion & emotion,arrested his mind forcing him to glance at her even if with a reticent face..

Their lips were sealed for couple of minutes enveloping the atmosphere with a throttling discomfort for both until Daya broke the silence with a little forced & inane smile,:'mmagar...main...' he ventured to smile normally but failed...

:'jan na ...nahi chahenge aap...'acquiring a veneer of poise,he jabbered out,:'ke mere jeevan me kya kya hai? kis kis daur se guzar ke...' a faint inconvenience was visible over his face,:'aaj yaha pe ake ...pahuncha hun main?'

The silence was queer & long enough to drive him to look at her...Flooding cheeks of her were glistening in flickering candlelight as her quivering lips revealed in a trembling voice repressing a suffocating pain,:'aap ko...keh ke...achcha lagega...to main...sunungi...'

A pall of gloomy darkness pervaded his face as he put effort to flash a smile that unconsciously turned bleak..His body hunched forward as he kept looking in the distant darkness reflectively...Every moments seemed carrying heavy burden and clueless they were how much moments passed by,until Niyati spluttered in wavering voice,:'kaun hai woh?'

Daya was startled in the beginning but slowly he possessed the composure to reply back with a dolorous smile,:'hai nahi...thi...'

A chinking pain stirred within Niyati which she tried to appease forcefully for asking him in a trembling voice,:'thi?' her wandering eyes kept scrutinising his face minutely before spluttering more,:'matlab...uski...shaadi ho chuka hai...' she put the query rather like a conclusion...

Daya had no hurry to reply back looking at her,:'jee nahi...' Though it was an onerous task to defeat the stabbing pain inside,he decided not to torture the patience of the lady more and with a dismal smile, he declared,:'shaadi to nahi huya abhi bhi...magar jald hi honewala hai...'

:'to phir...'niyati murmured in bated breath,:'abhi bhi to kuchh kiya ja sakta hai...'

Daya's luminous eyes couldn't resist reflecting sheer surprise seeing Niyati's expectant face that was slowly recovering from hopelessness..

:'abhi bhi ye shaadi ...roka ja sakta hai...'she repeated emphatically as a faint yet optimistic smile appeared on her face..

An inadverdent tenderness spread over his face as he finally shook his head to divulge,:'nahi doctor...'

Niyati daubbed her eyes with quickened pace and countered in a suggestive tone,:'kyu nahi? main baat karungi usse...'she looked like fully restored back into her own self perhaps acquiring a semblance of exuberance...

An intense yet inexplicable burden of agony abruptly weighed upon his heart as he looked upon her ostensibly joyous face...Had he ever felt the urge to place her in a situation where she would long for his peace and well being? Since the forensic day nine years back till date,doctor Niyati Pradhan had been always a figure for him with whom he would have exciting repartee and with whom he loved to talk..But never for an iota of second the thought visited his mind that doctor Niyati who had maintained stringent exterior ever since he knew her,would be able to be stirred with such fervent emotion; with so much yearn to see him happy...It appeared ...incredulous! but...

:'soch kya rahe hai aap?'she butted in within his straying flummoxed thoughts,:"mujhe jaldi uski naam bataiye aur pata dijiye..' she was dubiously prompt and incredibly sincere & cheerful...

Daya kept scanning her face in faint almost extinguishing candle lights...

:'kya?'she asked him trying desperately to bring an animated grin,:'kya dekh rahe hain aap...aise?'her vain efforts couldn't resist the impassioned whisper as her eyes were shining abnormally...

Daya averted his glance with a dim smile..How could he divulge that it was apparent what was lurking beneath her forced gaiety...How could he reveal that it was too miserable to accept that...her gaiety and her truthful emotion had been submitted to such a man...who...had been weary & emptied in handling with such a delicacy...She could be at the beginning of a journey but...he had ambled along a long path so far 'emotion for a woman' was concerned...He had accepted the grim fact that it was simply not for him,whose life had been engulfed with crime & brutality...But why everytime,when he prepared himself to accept such an unpleasant truth about his life,some upheaval occured to him? He had allowed and agreed to live a recluse life,if not happily but peacefully but then why his fate catapulted him in an uncomfortable predicament everytime forcing him to reconsider his thoughts? It perplexed him the most and left him at the muzzled state of mind...

A flippant smile crossed Daya's face when he averted his glance once more to reply back,:'kuchh nahi doctor...bas ye ke...' a tormenting guilt seeped through his face,:'ke...mere karan...aap ko...kitna...taqleef pahucha...'

Niyati felt the ripple of pain trying to burst out but her eyes were as crystallized as could describe her poised...

:'aap ke zindegi me koi hai...'she swallowed the lump and spluttered,:'ye jan ke taqleef kam ho gaya...'a forced smile contorted her face...

:'nahi doctor,'Daya was gentle yet prompt perhaps to rectify her,:'woh mera galatfaimi tha...' dreary smile spread a gloomy pallor over his face..:'magar...'he returned back quickly desperately trying to conquer the tremble inside him,:'magar mujhe koi afsos nahi hai...kyuki...' he fumbled with a fatuous smile,:'woh kaffi khush hai uske mangetar ke sath...so...' he paused as his eyes wandered vaguely into the darkness before he shrugged in his lame effort to dismiss the chinking pain inside..:'I am quite happy now...' he tried to infer perhaps to persuade himself but his smile dispelled looking at the gleaming eyes of Niyati which seemed not at all convinced...

:'maine woh sab bhula diya,' he repeated emphasizing his words to coax Niyati,:'aur koshish karke ab main us se bahar hun...' he faltered as suddenly it struck him that he was nattering on quite foolishly...

:'woh to dekh hi rahi hun,'Niyati remarked in a teasing tone with a visible scoff..

Daya looked back at her taunting face and her scornful smile satisfied him lifting a burden off his heart...

:'aise hanste huye aap achche lagte hain,'commented Daya earnestly along with a sigh of relief...

Niyati smirked again though the darkness mercifully concealed the grief she had been carrying...

Silence prevailed for a minute, before Niyati urged with a thick voice,:'bohut raat ho chuka hai...Aap ko...atak ke rakhna...thik nahi lag raha hai...'

Daya spluttered with discomfort,:'dost dost ko...aise nahi kehte hain...'

Niyati maintained silence until it lasted for too long and Daya looked at her anticipating some words...

:'dost samajhte hain aap mujhe?'she shot the question then with a dreary smile..

A faint yet significant smile decked his face and it gradually broadened when he nodded endearingly...

Niyati hunched towards him with misty eyes murmuring with vehement fervour,:'please mujhe uski naam bataiye...please...It's ...'

drops of tears coursed down her cheeks copiously as she ventured to continue,:'it's...urgent...'

Daya clenched her begging hands with sheer shock and as she broke down with sobs,Daya in his desperate yearn to lessen her pain,patted her hair,at first hesitatingly and then with gentle care...

Several seconds went by before he decided to clip his tongue,:'doctor...'

Niyati laughed like a bewildwered histrionic within the sobs,with inconceivable pronunciation,:'dekha? aap to mera naam tak labs pe late nahi...kya koi dost dost ko...aise pukarte hain?'

Daya was utterly aghast at the vigour of her emotion and he was desperate to bring her down into a normal state however he felt inconvenient...

:'Niyati...'he uttered gently in a way one lull a baby...:'aise rone ke pehle...'he ventured daringly,:'mera kuchh baat sunenge aap?'

Niyati sniffed several times before wiping her tear-suffused face and trying ardently to restore back her mask of a dignified & nonchalant woman but she failed as violent sobs were betraying her...Finally she could settle herself steadily only when Daya's arms wrapped her from behind making her to look into his gleaming eyes with fervour...

:'mera vishwas kijiye..' muttered Daya trying to spread a placid smile over his face,:'mujhe ...'he faltered with irresoluteness,:'mujhe sach me...kuchh nahi chaiye...'he revealed like a child who tried to console his mother seeing her in tears..but before he could add more,Niyati butted in with fervid yearn,:'aap ko to sab samajh me ata hai!'her lips quivered and her palms trembled in her efforts to bury the sobs,:'bas ye chhor ke...ki...khud ka khayal rakhna ...'a painful grunt escpaed from her lips as she uttered the rest,:'bhi jaroori hota hai...'

Daya's befuddled eyes were keenly surveying each & every hue of her face ...The person whom he encountered with, twelve years back in the forensic,seemed to die...The person who used to smirk every now & then with superfluous smugness,seemed to vanish into the air...The person within the body of that lady named doctor Niyati Pradhan appeared to be a person whom he was not familiar with...A person-gentle,sympathetic,loving,emotional and...immensely sensitive and how much he was watching her,it appeared beyond that he could believe...An unknown tenderness somehow seizing him slowly pricking his heart with a searing pain..

:'jaroori hai kya...' he was startled as Niyati resumed after a long pause,:'ke...har kaam...bas...jaroorat se hi...karna parega?'

Even remaining within the morass of perplexity,he found a weary smile on his face discerning that his words of the early night had been rebounded on him and who could be more witty than doctor pradhan to do it?

:'baato me aap ki sath jeetna...' he endeavoured,:'na mumkeen hai...' finished Daya with a humorous look and it worked magically as her teary eyes gleamed and drenched face brightened with a smile even if for some ephemeral moments..The smile faded away in her yearn to search something within his precious smile...search for a crust of affection...tenderness...sympathy...search for an insanity which was tearing her apart...search for passion that he had ignited inside her,leaving her thirsty of his gentle care...How could she make it apparent what her lovelorn heart was murmuring inside? Wasn't it insisting her to make him happy? to see him happy?

Daya felt the flame of fervour,that was visible through her eloquent eyes and shrunk in an emotion that could be perhaps defined as an assortment of scare,discomfort & pain...she would perhaps be hurt if he reminded her about the time and silence would do no good either in that very moment when she was at the summit of her emotional outburst...He kept preparing himself for speaking something that would make her a little happy mitigating her pain but before that she spluttered in wavering voice,:'bohut torture kar rahi hun kya...main aap ko?'

Daya put effort to flash a smile before replying back, with a visible incredulity over his face,:'aap ko...pehchan pana...mushkil ho raha hai...doc...' A shy smile appeared over his face as he corrected himself,:' matlab...Niyati...'

Niyati initially sunk deep into the coyness of Daya's face but then she answered back earnestly,murmuring with vehemence:'ye badlav...bas aap laye hain Daya...'

Daya found himself dumb,staring awefully at her imploring eyes...Her risen breath was perceivable to him and before he could recover himself Niyati's eyes were almost getting closed and her head was leant against his shoulder...Everything around her seemed to be dizzy and thus she took refuge to the arm where she felt safest at that moment...She wasn't in a state to analyse whether she had crossed the limit or not,whether her incoherent behaviour would bring her shame afterwards or not...but she was in a confounding state from where she could only muse about him and she could only see his face coming unbidden before her bemused eyes...It seemed as if she was swimming through a haze of feelings & desires,specially so when the heat of his body infiltrated through her...Insulating herself by the warmth of his,she kept lying there while the dimmed consciousness merged with the peaceful slumber...


End file.
